


The Tesseract

by WritchCodex888



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: F/M, Psychological Horror, Romance, Suspense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 20:13:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 29,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6023203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritchCodex888/pseuds/WritchCodex888
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Few know the secrets of the Bone-Eater's Well, and none understand its mechanics. It never seemed more concrete than the workings of fate. By the time a forensic specialist visits Tokyo to confirm the identity of an United States soldier who died under mysterious circumstances, something terrifying and hungry will have already risen from its depths.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Legends

She shifted her weight from side to side, swollen feet throbbing in her shoes. The seconds on her wristwatch crawled by while she waited for her hosts at the embassy to ring the bell at the shrine. Everyone else was waiting in their neat line for a chance to pray, throwing furtive glances at her golden brown hair and round blue eyes. Being at least a head taller than everyone around her was all the worse for attracting stares.

Her embassy hosts, Mr. Ogada and Mr. Shimizu, were just as guilty of awkward looks, but with an element of scrutiny added to the narrowed eyes and sneers. They had studied her face for a reaction after leading her to the alleged body of Jose Martinez, American soldier. No one had told her the subject had been burned to a crisp. Confirming the identity would be more difficult than what she had been led to believe, but the question of what they had expected left her flummoxed.

Shock and revulsion were beyond her at this point. She had seen countless bodies, all in various states of decay. Sorrow was out of the question. When you were in this line of work, there was no room for pity for the subject, unless you wanted to go mad. There was no explanation as to why their intense stares persisted, even now, as they walked toward her.

There was a small woman following them, revealed when they strode off on either side of her. She looked to be about five feet, three inches with graying hair cut short and a plain cardigan draped over her shoulders. “Ms. C___, this is Mrs. Higurashi, of Higurashi Shrine.”

Ms. C___ held out her hand for a shake but received a bow instead. She inclined her torso in return, twitchy and unsure. “Ryssa C___, Forensic Specialist, here at the request of the United States Military. Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Higurashi.”

“How old are you, Ms. C___?” Mrs. Higurashi asked.

“Thirty-five, Ma’am,” Ryssa replied.

“Oh, I don’t believe that!” Mrs. Higurashi flapped her hand in a dismissive manner. “You look no more than seventeen!”

“I hear that a lot, ma’am.” Ryssa resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “It’s my baby face.”

“I would like to know what kind of moisturizer you use…”

“Mrs. Higurashi, we do have a few questions to ask you about the man that visited this shrine a few days ago.” Mr. Ogada was polite, yet firm in his reminder.

“Of course.” She led them all back to a house sitting beyond the shrine. After they removed their shoes and sat down in the living room, Mrs. Higurashi insisted on making them tea. While she was putting the kettle on the stove, Ryssa let her gaze travel along the walls. There were various family photos, most of which featured Mrs. Higurashi, an old man, and two children, a boy and a girl. It looked like the boy had grown up to pose in many of the pictures well after his teens, but the girl… She didn’t seem to be in any photographs that could be placed after the picture of her high school graduation on the entertainment center.

Mrs. Higurashi bustled back in with a tray lined with cups and the kettle. She set it onto the table before them delicately before passing out each of the cups, paying special attention to Ryssa as she was pouring her tea. “Green tea is alright?”

“Yes, thank you,” Ryssa bowed her head.

“I hear Americans like sugar in their tea. I could fetch some for you.” Ryssa caught the ghost of a small smirk on Mr. Shimizu’s face as Mrs. Higurashi asked the question.

“No, I’m not very fond of sugar,” she said.

“Ah, you drink tea the right way.” Mr. Ogada gave her a short nod as he raised his own cup to his lips.

Ryssa gave him a brief glare. “I always thought if you weren’t choking, you were doing alright.”

Mrs. Higurashi caught on to the tension and put on an even brighter smile. “Now, now. How can I help you investigators today?”

Mr. Ogada started. “We understand that you had an American guest just three days ago, Mrs. Higurashi.”

“Yes,” she answered.

“He confronted you?”

Mrs. Higurashi shifted with a glance to the side upon hearing the term. “He… spoke to me, yes. He was quite good with his Japanese. I complimented him, and he said he had been stationed at the base in Okinawa for quite some time. I thought it was interesting he had come all the way to Tokyo.”

“What did you talk about?” Mr. Shimizu asked.

“He asked who the man was, who came up the steps to the shrine.” Mrs. Higurashi hid a nervous cough behind her hand. “He seemed to think this person killed his friend. At first I thought he may have been drunk. He was slurring a lot, and I hadn't seen anyone come around myself.”

“Killed his friend?” Ryssa had once again turned a glare on the investigators. “Another army man?”

“Well, I didn’t ask. I did mention it to the police, but he said the police never saw anyone like that before, and he seemed to think the man wasn’t really a man.” Mrs. Higurashi wasn’t smiling anymore.

Ryssa's brow creased while she examined her hostess. “What do you mean?”

“Well, he said the man’s features were…” Mrs. Higurashi studied the ceiling. “Something about a grin that stretched from ear to ear? As though the skin was stretched as far as it could go over his bones and he didn’t even have any muscles or fat on them. And he had patches of oddly-colored hair all over his scalp, but didn’t have any ears.”

“Why did he think this man was the one who killed his friend?” Mr. Ogada asked.

Mrs. Higurashi took a sip of her own tea before answering. “It was quite extraordinary what he said, actually. He and his friend had been at a bar, one of the ones where the waitresses dress up in costumes to please the customers, but there was one fellow they thought was really creepy, walking around like he described. They thought he was in costume. After they left, they were followed by this man, and when they threatened him with violence for following, his mouth opened wide and swallowed the friend whole!”

“Quite the story,” Mr. Ogada said. “Did the monster say why he swallowed this man?”

“He thought it was something about ‘time devouring all’. But because of this thing's stretched smile, it was difficult to understand.”

Ryssa had heard enough. She stood up with a sigh. “Gentlemen, did you bring me here to tell ghost stories?”

“This is a lead, isn’t it?” Mr. Shimizu's question was heavy with sarcasm.

“If it is, it’s a flimsy one. There are no reports of other soldiers gone missing, to my knowledge.” Ryssa was throwing his tone right back at him, but his glower remained.

“To your knowledge,” he replied coolly.

“With all due respect, Mr. Shimizu, Mr. Ogada,” she turned to each of them in turn, “I don’t think I want to play the ‘let’s mess with the gaijin’ game when I could be back at the lab finishing my DNA analysis. If you don’t take the death of an American soldier very seriously, that’s fine, but I would like to at least do my job without being sidetracked. I think Mr. Martinez’s grieving family would like to have his remains back, don’t you?”

When all the response she got was a resentful silence from the two men in the room, she turned to a mildly shocked Mrs. Higurashi. “I apologize for wasting your time, ma’am. May I use your bathroom before I leave?”

“Yes, of course.” Mrs. Higurashi stood to lead her to the small toilet next to a set of stairs. Ryssa thanked her, but before she closed the door, the lady of the house bowed. “I do hope you do not think I was being untruthful. I really did talk to this man, and he told me everything I repeated to you.”

Ryssa gave her an appreciative smile. “I believe you, ma’am, I do. But I can’t be chasing phantoms. I’m not even in charge of the investigation. I’m just here to identify the body.” She looked down and sighed. “Granted, I can’t deny I’m skeptical of this claim, but I don’t put any doubt on you. Perhaps Mr. Martinez was… mistaken.”

“It’s very difficult to be mistaken about these sorts of things, Ms. C___,” Mrs. Higurashi said. “I’ve had my own experiences, and even my daughter…” She paused with a small flinch. “People come to me because I understand them, and believe them.”

“I see.” The collection of pictures of Mrs. Higurashi's family popped back into Ryssa's mind. “Even though I’m not the one who will be following up, I’ll be sure to tell the officer handling the case to stop by.”

While in the bathroom, Ryssa pondered the lead concealed by her embassy hosts. Telling Officer Albrooke about it would cause a string of jokes at her expense. After all, she would have made fun of herself for putting any credence on such a tale. Though Mrs. Higurashi seemed like a nice woman, who was probably just lonely and hopeful after her daughter died, her testimony would be more hindrance than hope.

Besides the claim that there was another soldier missing.

Mr. Ogada must have read her mind as she turned over her options. When they headed down the staircase leading from the shrine, he spoke to her. “Mr. Shimizu and I would like to request your silence on this matter to the investigators on the case.”

Ryssa narrowed her eyes at him. “Why?”

“Because, Ms. C___, there are many reasons not to trust the official investigation. The United States military tends to cover up any flaws they perceive in their authority, and we do not wish that to be the case with this investigation as well.” He gave her a pointed look. “That’s why we brought you, an outside party, to this witness.”

“How do you think the death of Mr. Martinez has any power to undermine the authority of the entire United States military?”

“I don’t, but they might perceive it does.”

After a deep breath, Ryssa turned her eyes to the surrounding forest, again forcing herself not to roll them. “And what, pray tell, would you have me do with this information if not deliver it to my employer on the case?”

Mr. Ogada paused a moment as a bird took frantic flight out of a bush to the right of the steps. “With your forensic expertise, perhaps you can report to us any unusual traces or foreign DNA on the body. Maybe help us find this monster.”

“Do you believe this story about a monster, Mr. Ogada?” Ryssa raised her eyebrows.

“I’m not ready to say yet.” He paused again and Ryssa turned back to him with eyebrows raised. “Mrs. Higurashi and her family have a strange history, did you know?” Ryssa's frown deepened, but he continued. “They have owned and maintained this shrine for generations. A few years ago, when Mrs. Higurashi’s daughter was about to enter high school, she would miss weeks of school at a time. The school called for the Higurashis to show up in truancy court, but they insisted their daughter was too delicate to go anywhere after a while. Then, miraculously, she got better and attended high school all three years. Didn’t miss a day. After her graduation, Miss Higurashi disappeared again. This time for good. Mrs. Higurashi insists that she moved away and got married, but it does not explain some of the more odd occurrences around their family during that one year of middle school, where young Kagome was supposedly sick, but still managed to be seen around the city with a strange boy with strange hair and a red kimono, doing strange things…”

“Maybe she fell in with a gang,” Ryssa suggested.

“That’s the prevailing theory, yes. But Mrs. Higurashi, because of these strange occurrences around her daughter, has become something of a local center for tales of the… shall we say supernatural? People come to her when they see and experience things that can’t be explained.”

Ryssa smiled. “It sounds like you are ready to say what you believe.” If she had been inclined to cruelty, she would have told Mr. Ogada that he would have done better to remain silent and staring. This information he had given her was not only unnecessary, but leaving a bad taste in her mouth for how disrespectful it seemed to the subject. He may as well have been telling her tale over the glow of a campfire. She was grateful he didn't speak again on their way back to the lab she had rented in the city.  


She was getting out of the car when Mr. Shimizu called out to her. He looked strange in the half-light created by the tinted windows in the town car. Almost sinister. “You will let us know if you find anything on the body of Mr. Martinez, won’t you, Ms. C___?”

“Like ectoplasm?” she joked. When neither of the men in the car shared her sardonic smile, she let it drop into a heavy frown. “I can’t promise anything.”

“You have our numbers, if there’s anything to tell us,” Mr. Ogada said.  


“Don’t hold your breath for that call,” Ryssa mumbled. She didn’t watch them drive away; she swung around on her heel and walked as fast as possible toward the building, holding out her clearance badge for the guard to see.


	2. The Monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryssa experiences first hand the creature she heard about earlier in the day.

It was late by the time she finished the DNA analysis. The clock read a little after nine o’clock, and the sounds of bustling and chatter outside her secluded corner of the building had long since ceased. The analysis did show that Mr. Martinez's code matched that of the body lying on the gurney in the adjacent room. The only thing odd about the results were the shortened telomeres, but she was blinking back blurring vision and crossed eyes as it was. She sighed, pulling the plastic gloves off her hands to throw them in the trash. The anomaly would have to be examined in the morning.

She laid her forehead on the cool desk to ease her overheated brain. Tempting as it was to pass out, there was one more thing she had to do before she could leave for her hotel room. Ryssa picked up her clipboard, tape recorder, and a pair of forceps on her way through the swinging door that led to the cold room. She rolled the sheet covering the charred body down to the end of the table and squinted at the remains, leaning this way and that to get a better perspective. Her eyebrow twitched. 

Hitting the red button on her recorder, she held it up to her lips, gave the date, and then began to comment. “Subject has decomposed at an abnormally rapid rate, despite sterile conditions. No catalysts immediately visible, examiner will conduct a more thorough search. Decomposition of subject has revealed…” Ryssa poked at the bone showing from beneath the flap of hardened flesh still covering parts of it. “… striations perpendicular to the orientation of the lower radius just above the carpals on the left side. No, right too.” She bustled over to the other side of the table just to be sure it wasn’t a trick of the light. “Striations look to be made by a blunt tool, with some serration, though no wounds appeared on the remaining flesh to indicate this before. At least none that would have cut deep enough to saw the bone as well.” 

She set down the recorder and clipboard to put on a new set of gloves, and then started examining the arm of the victim more closely. The radius had the saw marks all the way around it, while the ulna was pristine. Nothing that she knew of could have done that to one forearm bone without also doing it to the other, and never the whole way around. It was so bizarre that she had to work hard to convince herself it was probably some genetic condition she was unaware of. She made a note to inquire into the man’s medical records again later. 

Ryssa began the meticulous task of finding the source of the quick decomposition, but stopped again when she found something else. She plucked a single white hair from what was left of the scalp. “What are the odds that I found one grey in a head that was once full of black hair?” she muttered to herself. She was literally trying to figure out the odds, starting from the average number of hairs in a human man’s head, when her unfocused eyes caught some movement in one of the observing windows. It caused her to start, but when she looked around to see what it was, nothing was there.

The white hair was still in the forceps when she placed them gently into the examination tray. Still uneasy, she was glancing around the room while she removed her gloves again. She tossed them in the garbage next to the door to the hallway and poked her head out to see if anything was lurking. Left, then right, then left again, she was more thorough than if she had been making a turn onto the road with her car. She saw nothing in the bright corridor, but she had to be sure one of the guards wasn’t playing a trick. “Hello? Anyone there?” When she got no answer, she sighed. “You know, the ‘ghost in the shadows’ joke has gotten really old since I started this job!”

There wasn’t an answer, but she did hear a shuffle from the opposite end of the hall. Ryssa darted out the door and down to where she had heard the noise, just in time to see a naked arm round another corner. “Hey!” She shouted, in both Japanese and English. “Hey! How did you get in here?”

She skidded to a stop just before she got to the main door, which was slowly hissing shut as the intruder ran beyond. He was naked as a babe and making strange jerking movements with his limbs. Ryssa hung back and looked at the phone next to the abandoned security desk, contemplating calling the police. She looked up to be sure of which direction he was headed, and stumbled back with a shriek at the sight of him right up against the glass in the door. Grinning.

No, he wasn’t grinning, his skin was just stretched taut against his bones so every tooth he had was showing. His dead blue eyes held none of the joy, laughter, or happiness that would normally warrant a smile that huge anyway. Tufts of blue and purple grew uneven and wispy from his veined scalp, and the only trace of his ears were gaping holes in either side of his skull. He was still flailing. 

Her eyes remained glued to the horrible figure on the other side of the glass, breathing hard while her trembling fingers reached for the phone. She wanted to look away, but she was afraid he would disappear. Whether he was a figment of her imagination or a real monster, she would be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life waiting for him to reappear. She wouldn’t even let her eyes flicker down to the phone’s keypad to dial the authorities, so her fingers made their educated guesses while she watched the monster raise his stiff hands to the glass.

She could see his skin splitting at the shoulders, like an undersized jacket at its seams. The rips didn't bleed, just revealed a black void. He began to bang his permanently splayed fingers on the glass, soft at first, then harder and harder, until the pane was rattling. Ryssa had lost control of her own limbs in her terror, and had forgotten to finish dialing the police.

A hissing noise passed through the glass, coming from between the monster’s clenched teeth. “Kaaa issshhh eeee…”

He couldn’t close his mouth to form proper words, so it took a couple repetitions of the noises for it to occur to Ryssa that he was trying to say something. She wouldn’t have wanted to listen to the horrible sounds coming out of his mouth even if they’d been coherent, but her fear was still keeping her rooted to the spot. All she could do was stare. 

After a few terrifying seconds of the monster hissing at her, it clicked in her mind that he might be trying to beckon her forward. A frightened squeak escaped her throat and she made the slightest shaking motion of her head. As if he had read her mind, he flailed off beyond the window and out of sight. His sides were literally splitting, and more of the void within was revealed as he disappeared, visions that remained etched in her head for several minutes when she kept her eyes glued to the window in fear. 

Finally, she collapsed on the floor, gasping for the breath she hadn't been taking for the past several seconds. “Mother fucker!” She began choking. “I… I’m going to vomit…”

She ran to the bathroom to do just that. When she rinsed out her mouth and looked in the mirror, she half expected to see the creature standing with its inhuman grin right behind her, but he was nowhere in sight. Despite this small amount of relief, her mind was still reeling with paranoia. If he was able to get in before, he would be able to do it again, and she wouldn't stick around in case he decided to come back.

She ran to her office, gathered her belongings and returned to the front door. After checking to make sure she could still see no sign of the intruder outside, she took a deep breath and bolted out into the windy night. Her hotel wasn’t far, so she decided to walk there instead of hailing a cab. The fresh air was calming, and the cold wind kept her out of her head where the horrific experience was waiting to be relived.   
At least, until she reached her hotel. It looked like she was the only one around, and she was going to sprint to the door when she saw him. He was standing brazenly underneath the bright hotel sign, perfectly visible with his exposed teeth and gums gleaming. Ryssa meant to scream, but the sound got stuck in her throat. She just turned tail and ran back the direction she came.

She fumbled for the numbers of one of the men from the embassy in her purse, but it soon became clear that she had left them at the lab. Cursing again, she searched her mind for anyone else she could call. Everyone she knew was either outside Japan, unreachable, or would probably belittle her for the things she was seeing. She wasn’t even sure he was really there herself. She just needed a little support, someone that could keep the visions of this man at bay.

Hesitantly, she hailed a cab. The driver asked her where she would like to go, and before she could rethink her decision, she blurted, “Higurashi Shrine. Please.”

The driver wondered aloud what she could want to do at Higurashi Shrine at such a late hour, but Ryssa didn’t answer. She wasn’t even sure she had an answer, or that this was the right place to go. The possibility that this creature was trying to lure her there like he lured Mr. Martinez sent shivers down her body. But if he was going to haunt her everywhere else until she went where he wanted her to go, it seemed sensible to get it over with. 

With all of this conjecture swirling in her head, she felt like she was going to the gallows as she climbed the steps to the shrine. The wooded area on either side of them looked black, and she dreaded the prospect of seeing, yet again, the pale figure of the man with the splitting grin. He didn’t show himself, though, and she found her way to the top of the steps without any more frights. 

She was about to break into a sprint toward the house at the back of the property, but something stopped her. What would she do? Knock on the door and say, “Sorry to bother you ma’am, but that monster Mr. Martinez told you ate his friend is following me around now, and I was wondering if I could crash at your place?”

Ryssa gulped. It sounded crazy, even in her fear addled brain. She took a step backwards to turn around when a rustling in the bushes to her right made her jump back in surprise. A fat calico cat sauntered out of them and gave her that disdainful look all cats seemed to have for humans. Relief flooded Ryssa. “Girl, did you ever scare the Dickens out of me.”

Her eyes were drawn to a shimmering on an outbuilding just beyond the end of the path next to the bushes. The door was slid open just a crack, but it looked like there was a light on inside. Ryssa wasn’t about to go anywhere near it, in case the creature was hiding out in there, but then the cat made a beeline straight toward it. She shuffled after the animal in case she happened to smell Mrs. Higurashi beyond the door. 

No one was there when she poked her head though the gap. There was just a short set of steps and an old well wall. She pushed the door open a bit more and stepped inside, words coming slow and hesitant in the musty building. “Mrs. Higurashi?” she called. "I was… wanting to speak with you again. I saw something tonight, and I…”

“G-guuuuuhhhh.” Ryssa jumped at the hissing voice behind her and stumbled down the stairs, backing up against the well. There he was again, stretched lips straining against his gums to move. All they managed to do was tear and flicker in the void behind them. He reached out and waddled down the stairs on his stiff legs. She groped at the wall of the well behind her, and climbed up onto the lip. 

“Guuuuoooohhh,” he moaned, getting closer.

“What… What do you want?” Her voice was no louder than a whisper now that she needed it to carry.

“Guuuuuhhhhh!” He reached for her blouse with his cracked red fingers and it was enough to send her over the edge. She leaned too far back to avoid his touch and began to fall. It was too late to grasp the ledge. She tumbled down toward the black bottom of the well, but instead of hitting it, a bright blue light surrounded her, and she was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to PangolinPirate over on Fanfiction.net for her services as a beta.


	3. Before Her Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryssa stumbles into an authentic Feudal town.

All Ryssa could do was mutter under her breath about how much bullshit everything was. She took bitter consolation in the fact that she hadn’t broken her neck on the way down the well, but that still couldn’t quell her ill temper. “I could have been in bed, getting some rest to finish up the transport paperwork tomorrow, but no, I have to scare myself out of my wits and spend the night in a hole. Fantastic.” 

She took a deep breath to call out for help, but the shout halted in her throat when she looked up. All she saw were stars where the roof of the well house should have been. She stepped back, examining a sky uninterrupted by cross beams, and her hand brushed against an indent in the stone wall. “What’s this?”  
It was a foothold. Ryssa stuck the toe of her shoe into the groove and found another. A series of holds led right up to the wall of the well, as though someone was used to getting in and out of it all the time. She wasn’t about to look too closely at a blessing, but she did make a note to ask Mrs. Higurashi about it once she got out of there. Seeing her surroundings after climbing over the wall put those notions out of her head, though. 

“What fresh bullshit is this?” Ryssa whirled around, but there was nothing to see except a thicket of trees in all directions. “Where’s the path? Where’s the building? Where’s… where’s the house?”

The forest around her answered in chirps, croaks and rustles. Ryssa took a deep breath and let it out slowly through pursed lips. She scanned the area and took a step toward an opening in the forest to her left, but held back. It was a moonless night and if she walked into those trees, there was no guarantee she would be able to keep the trail. 

Staying put was always the recommendation for others lost in the wilderness anyway, so she paced the clearing. Out of the trees opposite the path, she heard a crackle of snapping twigs, and a low growl that made her freeze mid-step. As she stared, the foliage rustled and what sounded like a grunt issued from it. She backed up to the worn line of the trail as quietly as possible, and then entered the trees. 

The dark was almost impossible to navigate. She tripped over tree roots sticking out at all angles. Sometimes she was on her hands and knees feeling the way, and the noises around her made her flinch. The hiss of a snake was frequent, causing her to jump every time. Whenever the forest thinned out she muttered a thankful word, despite how strained and tight her tone was.

After what seemed like hours, she saw an end to her miserable walk. She came out from between the trees and saw a shallow valley surrounded by rolling hills, at the bottom of which was what looked to be a collection of old-style Japanese houses. She assumed it must have been some kind of park or historical attraction, but a couple of buildings had a light shining from within, in spite of the late hour. She did a double-take to make sure the little town wasn’t a mirage or dream, and ran down the hill and toward one of the houses.

Before she knocked on the door frame, she dusted off her trousers and blouse, which did nothing but smear the mud splashed on them. Brushing her tangled bangs away from her face probably did no good either, but at least she tried. A man in a full black body suit decked out in teal shoulder guards answered her knock. His mouth dropped open in surprise, while a woman in a full-length kimono came to inquire who had come to the house so late. They were both looking at Ryssa like she had two heads, but it was a natural reaction to being disturbed by a stranger in the middle of the night. In an attempt to make herself seem less strange, she spoke her most eloquent Japanese. “I’m sorry to bother, but I seem to have pulled a tourist stunt, and I’ve lost my way. Can you help me?”

The woman in the kimono cupped her hand around the man’s ear and whispered something unintelligible to him. He nodded and mumbled, “You should go get Kagome-sama.”

“It’s alright, I can stay here with our guest,” the woman stated with a sudden broad smile, beckoning her inside the hut.

“Kagome-sama?” Ryssa asked, a spark of recognition lighting her memory.

“The head priestess of the village, ever since Kaede-sama passed,” the woman explained while the man next to her lingered in indecision. He had one foot out the door, but he was still hovering protectively in front of the woman in the house. “I am called Rin! What is your name?”

“Uh… Ryssa,” she answered, momentarily distracted by the contrast of trust and mistrust shown by both occupants of the house. “I don’t have to come inside, if you don’t want me to. I just needed some directions, or…”

“Don’t say such things! Kohaku will go get Kagome-sama, and you can wait here with the children and me!” Rin pulled Ryssa into the house around Kohaku, who looked like her friendliness was a recurring, and exasperating, experience. 

Ryssa kicked off her shoes at the door before she was pulled further into the house and placed squarely on a tatami mat. The woman must have been about five feet tall and weighed a wispy bit of nothing, but the force with which she steered Ryssa was commanding. She seemed a lot bigger with how she conducted herself, and it was like her amiable personality filled the whole room. 

“Are you sure this is alright?” the man, Kohaku, asked when he peered around the corner into the room. 

“Oh yes, but hurry back with Kagome-sama!” Rin said. 

Kohaku looked at Ryssa and must have perceived how stunned she was, so he gave her a smile of his own before he left. Ryssa was so busy drinking in the traditional décor in the old home that she almost missed the question Rin asked her. “Are you a demon?”

“What? A demon?” Ryssa blinked at her for a moment. She hadn't heard that slang term for 'American' before. “Uh, no, I’m a, uh, talking sushi roll.”

Rin’s grin got bigger, if such a thing was possible, and she giggled. “You’re funny!”

“I guess so.”

“And you don’t look like anyone I’ve seen before. That’s why I thought you might be a demon.”

“I see.” Ryssa leaned a little to her right to see an alcove where a futon lay, two little faces poked out from under the covering. “You mentioned children. Is this some sort of historical camp, or…?” 

“No, nothing like that,” Rin tilted her head with knitted brows at the suggestion, but put her smile back on for her next statement. “They’re ours, mine and Kohaku’s. Yasahiro and Eiji. They are the joy of my life.”

“You seem to have a lot more joy than what just the two children would warrant,” Ryssa said. 

“There’s joy in everything, so I guess I do!” Rin laughed. Ryssa gave her a stilted smile, and Rin's own grin faltered a moment for seeing it. She amended her statement. “But I suppose being lost isn’t so joyous. I’m sorry for your situation.”

“Well, I think if there were anyone to help me make the best of it, it would be you.” Rin's great cheer was doing just this job. On anyone else, it might have come across as creepy, but on her it just seemed to work.

“It is a good opportunity to make new friends, and sometimes it gets a little lonely in this village, so new faces are really exciting,” Rin said.

“How long have you been here?” Judging by the wear on the walls and floors, Rin’s house must have been older than she was. It didn’t smell or look as though it were a restoration, though. A really well-built replica was Ryssa's conclusion.

“Hmmm…” Rin put a finger to her chin in thought. “I began living under the protection of Kaede-sama when I was just a child. Sesshoumaru-sama wanted me to learn to be with my own kind, but I don’t know how long ago that was.”

Ryssa had begun to count how many times Rin attached a “sama” to names when she heard the door slide open again. Kohaku had come back, and with a woman trailing behind him. She was probably in her late thirties or early forties, wearing a traditional shrine priestess outfit and her hair back in a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck. She took one look at Ryssa and gasped, her eyes almost bugging. “I… I don’t believe it!”

“Me neither,” Ryssa said, tone flat. They were probably in disagreement on which part of her misadventure was the most unbelievable.

“You’re from… Tokyo, right?” The woman was peering intently at Ryssa, looking her up and down.

“Well, technically, I’m from the United States. But, yeah, I was in Tokyo, and all of a sudden, I found myself out in the middle of nowhere. Quite miraculous, really.” Ryssa's lack of sleep combined with her crash on adrenaline from all the events prior were catching up to her and adding some attitude to her voice. She hid a yawn behind her hand. 

“How did you get here?” The woman in the priestess garb inquired.

“You tell me. I’m just looking for directions back to the city.”

“Those might not be easy to give,” the priestess said. “Did you happen to fall in a dried-up well?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.” Ryssa grimaced at the memory. “It wasn’t an accident, either.”

“I don’t know how to tell you this…” The priestess bit her lip and looked away before she continued. “You’re five hundred years in the past.”


	4. Another Case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A village man describes a monster attack similar to one Ryssa has heard before.

Ryssa spent the whole night interrogating her hosts in an effort to catch them in the act of playing an elaborate joke. Their straight faces were contrasted their far-fetched claims too much for her to accept, but when morning came there was a town full of proof. Everyone was dressed in authentic Japanese garb, not a western frock to be seen. The sight of her caused the villagers to whisper and gather around, a marked difference in how the denizens of Tokyo tried to hide their stares. Anyone she approached claimed not to know what a cell phone was or where she could borrow one. A child commented on how pointed and large her nose was, and she blushed as she raised a hand to cover it. 

She looked for cameras in bushes, trees, under thatching and around corners, but she could find none. The exercise had her rolling her eyes at herself anyhow. There was no way so many actors would stay so consistently in character for a joke, not even for one of those ridiculous game shows she had caught a glimpse of while surveying the cable in her hotel room. Ryssa ran out of energy for the conflicting reality and impossibility of it all, and collapsed against the wall of Rin's house. She avoided looking Kagome in the eye when the priestess came to put a hand on her arm. “It’s overwhelming, I know.”

Ryssa sighed. “Wasn’t it Sherlock Holmes who said, ‘eliminate all other possibilities, and the remaining one must be the truth’?”

“I haven’t read those stories, to be honest,” Kagome admitted.

“It was something like that, at least.” Ryssa’s eyes were still darting around, looking for seams in the illusion. “I just don’t know if I’ve eliminated all the other possibilities yet.”

“It took a long time for me to realize it wasn’t a dream.”

“Now there’s an idea. I didn’t think of that.” Falling asleep at her desk in the lab might have caused some vivid dreams, but counting on that possibility seemed foolish. 

“Hey Kagome!” Ryssa looked around to where Kagome was waving and felt her mouth drop open. A young man was sauntering toward them, but was he a man at all? He had pointed animal ears on the top of his silver head and as he got closer, Ryssa observed the unusual color of his eyes; a light gold. She must have been staring the way the others in the village had been staring at her, because he glared. “Who’s the idiot?”

“She’s not an idiot, Inuyasha!” Kagome protested, crossing her arms. “This is Ryssa. She was the one Kohaku called me away about last night.”

“The lost one?” The young man’s nostrils flared. “Sounds like an idiot to me. What kind of demon are you to get lost in a human village?”

Kagome gave the one she called Inuyasha a glare while Ryssa massaged her temples. “There’s that ‘demon’ term again. Can someone explain to me what that’s   
supposed to mean?”

“She’s perfectly human, Inuyasha, she’s just not from Japan,” Kagome explained.

“My nose doesn’t lie. She doesn’t smell like any human I’ve ever come across,” he replied. 

“Is this a roundabout way of suggesting that I’ve got wicked body odor?” Ryssa picked up the collar of her blouse and held it to her nose to test the scent. 

“It’s not that, no…” Kagome gave her a look of pity. “I’m sorry, but there’s more to this place than just being five hundred years in the past. In this time period, there are spirits, demons and gods, that roam around. Inuyasha is…”

“Keh! You’re not telling me this idiot says she came from your world, are you?” Inuyasha scoffed again. “Nobody’s gone through that well but the two of us. So, what’s the deal? You hear the legends and come to trick us? Like you’re the first to try that stunt!” When Inuyasha held up a threatening hand, Ryssa eyes were drawn to the length and sharpness of his fingernails.

“Inuyasha, sit!” The young man took a dive face first into the dirt at Kagome’s command. She crossed her arms and scowled down at him. “I know she’s telling the truth, because she said she was from the United States, a country in the future! Give me a little credit!”

He mumbled something unintelligible into the dirt while Ryssa edged along the wall of the house. “You know, I don’t think I want to know anything else. I’ll just… see myself out.” Finding the trail she had walked into the village on in the daylight would be much easier, and retracing her steps had better merit than hanging around in a Medieval Japanese village she wasn't convinced was even real. 

Kagome called for her to stop as she launched into a stride on the path across the village. “If you came through the well, there must be a reason, and Inuyasha says you don’t smell human, so…”

“Oh, there’s a reason alright.” Ryssa hadn't stopped walking, so Kagome had to jog to keep up with her longer legs. “A creature pushing me into a hole was the reason. But do you know what wouldn’t have a reason? Standing here wondering when I went crazy while you think up all the excuses I was fated to be here, and everyone else calls me a demon or smelly or I don’t know what. It would be the most colossal waste of time, and I don’t feel like wasting any more time on this nightmare. Thanks for the sack of weird this experience has been though. It was real special.”

“Listen, I had the same attitude as you when I first came here, but I had a purpose, and you might too!” Kagome almost ran into Ryssa when she stopped short and turned to her with her eyebrows knit.

“I already have a purpose. I’m supposed to be sending a deceased man’s body back to his family in the States today.” Ryssa waved a hand at the collection of modest homes she was leaving behind. “I wasn’t supposed to be dragged all over Japan, ancient or otherwise, becoming acquainted with local ghost stories, your mother, or you.”

“My mother?” Kagome blinked.

“What do you think I was doing within a five-hundred-mile radius of that well to begin with?” Ryssa realized by Kagome’s flinch that her tone had become a little harsh. She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yes, your mother and I became acquainted yesterday, when my hosts at the embassy decided to stop by for a short statement. Apparently she had seen the man I was hired to identify hours before his death.”

“Oh, Mama…” Kagome covered her mouth with a trembling hand.

“If it’s any consolation, she didn’t see him die. But, he did claim that he saw his friend eaten whole by some kind of monster. In fact,” Ryssa shivered as a sudden chill overcame her and hugged herself with crossed arms, “it matched the description of the creature that pushed me in the well.”

“That’s how I got here too,” Kagome mumbled, her hand still covering her mouth. “A demon pulled me in.” She balled her hand into a fist and dropped it to her side. “What did it look like?”

“It looked like a man, but… but it wasn’t a man. It was like it was wearing a man’s skin, like it was trying to pass itself off as human, but the skin he was using was too small, and it was stretched so thin that it kept splitting and…” Ryssa felt her blood run cold at her own description. She couldn’t continue, even to tell Kagome about that defining, horrible grin.

“That’s… not the demon that pulled me in. I’ve never seen anything like that,” Kagome said.

“Neither have I. And I don’t ever want to see anything like that again.” Ryssa turned to continue walking, but the pleading in Kagome’s voice made her freeze.

“I can’t let you just walk away. Inuyasha was right. No one else has been able to travel through the well except us. And now you.” When Ryssa met her eyes, there was a steely quality to them. “If this has anything to do with the Shikon no Tama, I need to find out. We can’t let anything like that come into the world again.”  
Ryssa cocked her head. “A… A bead?”

“Not just any bead. The Shikon no Tama enhanced the power of any demon that got a hold of it. That’s how Inuyasha and I met, actually. He wanted the bead to become a full demon, instead of just half. I brought the bead back to this world, so I was guarding it. We started out as enemies, but we…” Kagome blushed. “We fell for each other, eventually.”

This statement made Ryssa grimace. “That guy who slammed his face into the ground over there? He’s like… twelve.”

Kagome’s whole face and neck turned bright pink. “I know he looks younger than me, but he’s actually a lot older. It’s the demon blood that makes him age slower.”

“We’re at demons again…” Ryssa muttered, laying her head in her hands.

“You’re one to talk.” Inuyasha was back, and this time with a young man of about thirteen on his heels. “Smelling like one.”

“You’ll want to stop commenting on how I smell. It’s creeping me out,” Ryssa snapped.

“Dad, who is she?” The boy asked Inuyasha. “An enemy?”

“Your mother seems to trust her, so I guess not,” he answered. 

Ryssa grimaced again. “Like… twelve.”

“But if she gets any ideas, she shouldn’t be too hard to take out.” Inuyasha held up those claw-like nails again, but all Ryssa did was wrinkle her nose.

“Believe me, she’s not a threat.” Kagome turned her glare on Ryssa. “I hope she’ll stay, if only to answer a few questions for me.”

“That’ll have to wait. Rin sent Daiki over because she needs your help,” Inuyasha told Kagome.

“What with?”

“Says that man, Isao, is having some type of hallucination. She’s afraid he might hurt himself, so she needs you to come help give him the medicine she’s cooking up.”

“That same Rin that I just met?” Ryssa asked.

“The very same.” Kagome lingered behind a moment as Inuyasha and her son began to lead the way back into the heart of the village, a beckoning hand extended toward Ryssa. Ryssa twisted to take a long look back in the direction of the forest, the trail, and the well. When she turned back, Kagome was catching up to her family on the dusty road back to Rin’s. On the one hand, there was the undeniable logic of returning to where she had become lost. On the other, the logic of staying with other people in a safe place. After Kagome had her describe the creature that pushed her into the well, going back to where it happened was an action she was actively resisting. She oscillated between the two directions, taking hesitant steps in a small circle until she threw up her hands.

“Oh, curse all of this nonsense.” She strode after them, averting her eyes from Kagome’s smile upon seeing her jog up next to them. Ryssa cleared her throat with a small cough. “If this is really five hundred years in the past, does Rin have any ability to treat hallucinations? Mental disorders aren’t even fully understood in the present day.”

“Rin doesn’t have any cure for that, but she can at least give him some sedatives to calm him,” Kagome explained. Her smile grew wider and she lifted her chin. “She studied under Kaede-sama for years when Sesshoumaru left her here, and she was a very astute student. Innovative too. She came up with a few concoctions all on her own to help out with various ailments.”

“Oh.” Ryssa didn’t question the assessment. Rin’s bedside manner was probably impeccable, and medical science had to start somewhere. Besides, Ryssa would have been in a poor position to talk. As much as she knew about anatomy, she knew very little about medicine. Her subjects were already dead.

When they arrived back at Rin’s house, there were various lookers-on that had horseshoed around the entrance. Ryssa heard heavy sobbing coming from the other side of the door as they drew closer. The crowd parted to let Kagome, Inuyasha and herself in, but the boy called Daiki answered the summons of one of the other children in the village. Ryssa’s eyes followed him while he ran to join his friend and disappeared between two loitering men at the front of the assemblage. She paused on the threshold for a moment, and had to take another gulp of air before pushing herself past it.

Kagome knelt down next to a quivering ball of limbs on the floor and placed her hand on the small square of forehead exposed to her. She shook her head. “Have you given him anything?”

Rin lowered her eyes. “He won’t take it. I tried to give him something to calm him down, but he won’t even take a taste.”

“I won’t. I won’t,” he confirmed, voice muffled by his palms.

“Why won’t you let Rin-chan help, Isao-san?” Kagome asked. 

“It’s not a vision, don’t you understand?” he sobbed. “She’s gone! He ate her!”

“Ate who, Isao-san?”

“My daughter!” 

“But, Isao-san has never had a daughter,” Rin muttered, brows knitted.

Isao lifted his head to give Rin a watery glare. “I did, though. She was there, I remember her as she grew up! She wasn’t in my head! Why does no one believe me?”

Ryssa dropped to her knees next to Kagome, in front of Isao. “I do! I believe you!”

“Ryssa-san, what are you…?” Kagome gave her the slightest twitch of her head and a frown, but Ryssa was still focused on the crying man.

He drew in a shuddering breath. “You… You believe that my daughter was there? That she was eaten?”

“Ryssa-sama, perhaps you shouldn’t…” Rin began. 

“Yes, I believe it. Tell me who ate her. Tell me what he looked like.” Ryssa leaned forward, ignoring the looks she was getting from the other two women in the room.

“He… He…” Isao gulped and a sweat broke out on his forehead. “His skin was too small for him and his head was only growing a little hair, but he was still smiling like it didn’t hurt when his skin tore. He opened his mouth so wide he swallowed my daughter whole, and his skin shed like…” He couldn’t continue anymore and broke down into sobs. 

Kagome was holding her hand to her mouth again. “Oh, no. The demon that pushed you into the well.”

“The body I was identifying before I got lost here belonged to a man named Martinez.” Ryssa nodded at her. “He told your mother that he saw a monster eat his friend whole, but there was no one from the base that was reported missing before his death.”

The cries of Isao were the only sounds heard in the stuffy room. Finally, Rin spoke up with a tremble in her voice. “You aren’t saying… that this daughter was…”

“Do you still think you don’t have a purpose here?” Kagome asked.


	5. Ancient

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryssa stays the night with Kagome, and a surprise awaits her in the morning.

Kagome rolled out a thin futon and sat back on her heels to adjust its corners. “I hope this is alright, Ryssa-san. It’s a little worn, but it still works at least.”

“I’m grateful you can put me up. It’s very kind.” At first, Ryssa had refused Kagome’s invitation. She had been monitoring Isao and taking notes on the similarities between his and Mr. Martinez’s case. All the excitement of the previous two days was catching up to her, though, and she had to admit she hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours. Rin said she would observe Isao for her, and with that, Kagome whisked her off to prepare her bed.

“It’s too kind, if you ask me, letting this stranger share our house for the night.” Inuyasha had done nothing but scowl since they met, but somehow his frown was more pronounced now.

“She’ll never be able to sleep over at Rin’s with Isao-san on her mind. She’ll be able to get better rest here,” Kagome said. 

“What do I care if she gets better rest?” he complained. “If she causes trouble, that’s another thing.”

“Maybe he’s right. I’ve been told I snore.” Ryssa gave him a sarcastic smile, but all he did was scoff and turn away.

“Don’t mind him. He’s naturally suspicious of strangers.” Kagome smoothed the fabric of the futon and stood. “There! You should get settled. I’ll be right back.”

Inuyasha looked between Ryssa and his children, narrowing his eyes at her before following Kagome out of the room. Ryssa exchanged a glance with the kids sitting opposite her, who were better called adolescents. It turned out that Daiki was only one of three. He had two older sisters, one fifteen, and one sixteen years old. They all had black hair, but the middle one, Kaiya, had ears like her father’s. Ryssa counted two pairs of gold eyes and one pair of brown when she looked back, and all but one shifted away in a hurry. “… Hello,” Ryssa said.

“Why do you look so strange?” Kaiya asked, tilting her head and squinting her eyes. 

“Kaiya!” her older sister, Sachi, hissed. She bowed to Ryssa, forehead to the floor. “I’m sorry. She’s so rude sometimes.”

“Daddy’s little girl, huh?” Kaiya smiled where Inuyasha would have bristled, and didn’t say anything in response. “Don’t worry about it. I won’t deny I stand out.”

“Kaiya’s one to talk, though,” Daiki said, snickering. Kaiya didn’t respond to that either, and just laid down to go to sleep. 

Sachi spared another glance to her sister before turning her eyes back to Ryssa. “Mama says that Ryssa-san came from the well.”

“Something like that,” Ryssa said.

“We can’t go through. We’ve tried,” Daiki said.

“What’s it like over there?” asked Sachi.

“Depends on where you are, really.” Ryssa hid a wide yawn behind her hand. She fought to keep her eyes open. “Mostly it’s just stressful.”

Sachi smirked. “Isn’t that called life?”

“Touche, my young friend.” Ryssa chuckled at Sachi's lowered eyebrows. “Never mind. I’ll tell you a little more tomorrow, I think. If I don’t lay down now, I may be in danger of falling over.”

“Good night, then.”

Ryssa was outrunning darkness. She hid wherever there was light, but eventually the darkness would catch up to her and snuff it out. The darkness consumed things. People she saw were swallowed by the black, and then there was no evidence they were ever there to begin with. The only thing that indicated their absence was her own sense of loss. Just as she was surrounded by shadows and there was nowhere left to run, her eyes snapped open. 

At first she thought the darkness had caught up with her, but soon her eyes adjusted, and the wooden slats of Kagome and Inuyasha’s walls materialized into view. She could hear the recognizable sound of Inuyasha’s voice whispering something. She strained her ears to listen. “… nothing like this. Not before. How do we know she didn’t do it?”

“If she did,” Kagome’s voice whispered back, “she’s a very good actress. I remember how it felt to go through the well the first time. It’s not something I’ll ever forget. She feels the same, I know it.”

“I don’t trust her is all.”

“I don’t expect you to. You’ve never been the trusting type, if I recall. But try not to get too antagonistic.”

“I won’t try anything if she doesn’t try anything first.”

“What could she try?”

“You know what demons are like, Kagome.”

“Oh, Inuyasha…”

Ryssa closed her eyes again. She wouldn't waste her time working for Inuyasha’s trust . That 'demon' term that he kept throwing around was taunting her, though. He said she didn’t smell human. She tried to catch her own scent on the warm air between herself and her blanket. Was there a difference between what she smelled now and what she could smell on someone like Kagome or Rin, something she couldn't detect?

Despite this question, falling back to sleep was a matter of time. Her head filled with the dark that had woken her before, but it no longer had power enough to overcome her exhaustion.

A commotion of footsteps on the floorboards in the morning acted as her new alarm. When Ryssa sat up on her futon, she saw Sachi at the other end of the room stirring a pot over a fire while the other children were rearranging their clothes and yawning as they sat down next to her. Inuyasha, on the other hand, didn’t look like he had moved the whole night from the head of Kagome’s futon. It was empty, but he remained, giving Ryssa a sidelong glance out of the corner of his eye.

She dug the sleep out of her eye with her pinkie. “Where’s Kagome-san?”

“Mama is the head priestess here, so she goes early to the shrine every day to pray,” Daiki explained. He raised his eyebrows at her. “Don’t the priestesses in that other world do the same thing?”

“I wasn’t really acquainted with any, so I can’t rightly say,” Ryssa answered.

“Would Ryssa-san like some rice porridge?” Sachi asked.

“I don’t want to impose any further, but I suppose. If there’s enough.” Sachi nodded and spooned some of what she was stirring into a wooden bowl for Ryssa. She wasn’t given a spoon, so she tilted the bowl up to her lips to taste the runny soup inside. “If Kagome-san is out, should I wait for her to come back?”

“Don’t bother. As soon as you finish that, you can get outta here,” Inuyasha said.

“Disappointing. I was hoping to wear out my welcome a bit longer.” Ryssa said, smirking.

“Look, I don’t know who or what you are, but you smell funny and you’ve got a smart mouth, and I don’t like it. So don’t push your luck.” Inuyasha stood up to stretch, fingers extended so the morning light from the window glinted off his sharp nails. 

Ryssa shrugged. Parting company with him wouldn’t be difficult. Of course, being unable to thank Kagome for her hospitality again left her with an unexpected twinge. She put down her bowl, only a small portion of the contents swallowed. When she slid the door aside, she found the path to the forest was clearly visible from where she stood, and looked more unfriendly than even Inuyasha. 

She managed to put on a cavalier face when Inuyasha brushed past and silently escorted her to the stream running in the ditch on the other side of the road. “Thanks for putting up with me. I really appreciated the lodgings, and I know you would rather I hadn’t been there at all, so I’m doubly grateful for you not kicking me out.”

“If it were up to me, I would have,” Inuyasha said. 

“Well then pass along my thanks to Kagome-san.”

“You’ll be fine to tell her yourself. I’m not a messenger.” 

“Are you always this uncooperative?” Inuyasha shrugged at her. Ryssa made to turn around and cross the bridge to Rin’s place and make a diversion of Isao’s condition when she paused. “I just have one question. What is it that I smell like to you?”

Inuyasha’s nostrils flared again, and he looked to his right with an annoyed expression. “What are you coming this way for, Miroku?”

Ryssa followed his gaze to a man wearing billowing Buddhist robes. His smile was disarming and lazy as he strode toward them. “I had hoped Sango and the children had come back by now, but my house is empty. I was wondering if you had seen them.”

“They’ve been off for a few days now,” Inuyasha said. “Sango can’t keep it up when she’s carrying your kid, so she took the younger ones to the twins to train. Kohaku went to join them just last night.”

“Why is it always that I check the place they’ve already left?” The monk sighed with his pleading eyes turned to the sky. When he brought his gaze down again, it alighted on Ryssa. “Who is this?”

“Some weird thing that came from the well.” Inuyasha stuck his pinkie in his ear and rotated it.

“The well, you say? But no one has been able to go through but you and Kagome-sama before.” The monk looked her up and down with a sharp gaze.

“That’s what’s so weird,” Inuyasha said.

“That, among other things.” Ryssa ignored Inuyasha’s scoff and turned back to her new delay, the monk named Miroku. “It appears I’ve dropped right into the middle of a pretty little problem, and Kagome-san seems to think it’s fate.”

Miroku looked down his nose at her. “Kagome-sama is very acquainted with the workings of fate, having gone through the well herself to rid the world of the Shikon no Tama. I would not discount her opinion so lightly.”

“Forgive me for my skepticism.” Ryssa shrugged. “Fate and I are strangers.” 

“Everyone has some experience with fate,” Miroku said.

“Maybe this is my introduction, then.” Ryssa looked down the road into the village, careful to avoid the sight of that path into the woods again. “Tell me, how much experience do you have with fate?”

“Enough to praise it when it puts me in the path of a beautiful woman!” Miroku let out a hearty laugh. “Back in my youth I would have asked you to bear my children!”

Ryssa raised an eyebrow at him. “You don’t say. You must have been pretty careless.”

“In some ways, exceedingly so.”

“Eraserhead would have set you right.”

Miroku tilted his head and furrowed his brow. “I’ve… never heard of such a thing.”

“I thought as much. A man like you might be the better for it.” Ryssa smirked. 

A scream rang out through the village. Inuyasha and Miroku jumped into action so fast that Ryssa blinked and they were already flying down the path toward the source of the sound. She scrambled to catch up, but she lost sight of them around one of the many bends in the dusty road. Another scream led her to the left between a couple who craned their necks mouths agape straight at Rin’s house. She skidded to a stop next to the two men that had rushed through the door to Rin’s aid and adopted their look of horror at the sight.

A healthy middle-aged man the previous night, Isao’s hair had gone white, skin pale, wrinkled and paper thin. His every breath was labored and shaking. His eyes were hooded and distant. He had become an ancient man in only a few hours.


	6. Autopsy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryssa examines the village man's body for clues as to what caused his rapid aging.

Rin's voice was muffled by her hand as she blamed herself for nodding off during Isao's stay. “I should have been watching him.”

“There’s no way you could have prevented this by staying awake. It wouldn’t have done any good,” Ryssa said, shaking her head.

“Just what the hell happened to him?” Inuyasha was kneeling beside Isao, craning his neck to see every possible angle of his sagging, wrinkled face. Miroku was doing the same on his other side.

“I don’t know,” Ryssa’s eyes were also roving over Isao, but they saw no explanation. Neither school nor the field had contained anything like it, so her hypotheses were limited to one. “The only thing I can fathom is that it has something to do with that monster he met yesterday.”

“You think?” Inuyasha directed a half-lidded glare at her.

Ryssa's gaze was still locked on Isao. “Isao-san, did anything happen to you when the creature consumed your daughter?” 

At first, Isao struggled to speak. He opened and closed his mouth several times before croaking out, “K-kill me.”

“There’ll be no need for that!” Ryssa said, voice wavering and out of pitch. “Think Isao. Did the creature make contact with you? Any small touch?” She glanced down at her blouse where the creature's cracked finger had poked her two days before and gulped down the lump in her throat.

“I… I cannot go on without… M-my little Ume… My daughter…” Isao’s face scrunched as he clutched at his chest. Whether it was his grief or aged body no one could tell.

“But if there’s anything…” Ryssa began.

“Ryssa-sama, he…” Rin stared with wide, watering eyes as Isao drew in a rattling breath and sighed his last. His chest moved no more. 

Miroku shook his head. “Was he already on the verge, or did he will his death?”

“I suppose we’ll never know,” Ryssa said. She sighed. “At least he’s not suffering anymore.”

Rin’s eyes were leaking silent tears. “I should have been watching him…”

Miroku bowed his head and raised his hand in prayer. “He was evidently haunted by a life lived without a child to care for, but he will be at peace now.”

“That’s just the thing,” Ryssa said. “I’m not convinced that this daughter never existed.”

“I have known Isao-san for some time, and I don’t recall him having a daughter.”

Before Ryssa could explain, Inuyasha sniffed loudly. “You better dry those tears, Rin. Sesshoumaru won’t like to see that.”

Rin drew her arm across her eyes. “He’s coming?”

“Yeah. He’s on the edge of the village.” The scowl Inuyasha always seemed to wear grew deeper as he crossed his arms into his sleeves.

“Friend of yours?” Ryssa asked.

“I wouldn’t call him a friend, no,” Inuyasha said.

Ryssa shrugged. “Just a friend of Rin’s, then. You should go visit with him and take your mind off all this.” She turned from Rin to Miroku and Inuyasha. “Can you help me move the body to a table or something? I’d like to examine it.”

Inuyasha was already picking up the old man from the floor. “What are you gonna look for anyway? Whatever you find, it won’t help him now.”

“If there’s a chance I can find something to help the next victim of this, though, I think it’s worth a shot.” Ryssa slid open the door for him as he walked out of the house. Villagers were gathered around again, hiding gasps behind their hands when they caught sight of Inuyasha's load.

“This sort of thing never happened before you got here. How do I know you’re not the cause of this?” Inuyasha squinted at Ryssa without a glance at the crowd parting before him.

“Well, I would have had to be responsible for the one that happened where I came from, but I wasn’t around to see it,” Ryssa said. “Is there a place we can take him that’s private? And has some sharp implements? I’m going to need to be thorough, and don’t want to shock anyone.”

“What the hell would you be doing that would shock somebody?” Inuyasha paused on the path, and the lingering onlookers skittered away with their heads bowed. 

Ryssa raised an eyebrow at him. “Well I would have to remove his clothing for an external examination, and I would need to check for internal anomalies, so I would perform an autopsy. To some, that can be somewhat shocking.”

“Surely you don’t mean to cut open the poor man?” Miroku asked, wide-eyed and blinking.

“I understand the idea isn’t pleasant, but it will tell us much about…”

“I’m not gonna let you mutilate this guy’s corpse!” Inuyasha held Isao’s body away from her as though she was going to snatch it from his hands. “Hasn’t he suffered enough?”

“Oh, really, you said yourself that nothing can help him now! It stands to reason that nothing can hurt him anymore either!” Ryssa threw up her hands at his persistent dirty look. “Honestly, I’ll be respectful, I’ll put everything back where I found it, and if it helps, I’ll go back and get my own tools. They’re more precise…”

“What’s this, Inuyasha? Has the village chosen a new deity to worship?”

A man in flowing white and blue silk had arrived, with spiked armor, a yellow belt, and a massive fur slung over his shoulder. His outfit was so busy that it took a moment for Ryssa to raise her gaze to his face, lifting her eyebrows at the sight. The crescent moon and symmetrical stripe tattoos on his face were adorning a very handsome visage. Long dark eyelashes, intense and focused eyes, full lips, and a strong but delicately curved jaw. It was almost ethereal. 

“Sesshoumaru, why don’t you mind your business?” Inuyasha barked.

"Sesshoumaru-sama, can you revive him?" Rin nodded to Isao's body while holding up her clasped hands in supplication.

The beautiful man turned his eyes to the corpse for several seconds before looking back at Rin. "It is impossible."

"Figures. Useless as always," Inuyasha sneered. 

Ryssa smiled as she looked between the two men, with their similar hair and eye colors. “If you’re going to be held up by a family quarrel Inuyasha, maybe Miroku-san here would like to help me get the body to a table instead?”

Miroku shot down the suggestion with a frown. “I’m afraid I don’t like the thought of you cutting Isao-san’s body any more than Inuyasha.

Ryssa crossed her arms and squinted at him. “I don’t understand why either one of you are being so squeamish about this.”

“It’s called ‘respect for the dead,’ maybe you should get some!” Inuyasha turned back to his brother and sneered. “Better yet, maybe you can chat with Sesshoumaru about how much you have in common while Miroku and me bury Isao.” 

A high-pitched croaking voice rang out from near the ground. “Why would you ever think Sesshoumaru-sama has anything at all in common with this strange creature?” Ryssa lowered her gaze and blinked wide eyes. Sesshoumaru’s appearance had been so dazzling that she hadn’t noticed it before, but it was short, green, with bulging yellow eyes and a beak-like mouth, and it was talking. 

Miroku was talking back with a casual air. “Jaken, you are as insensitive as ever, I see. What a way to talk to a lady.”

“That’s like no lady I’ve ever seen before,” Jaken stated, pointing at Ryssa. “What a face!”

“Ryssa-sama’s face is very pleasant.” Rin said. “She was so kind to Isao-san before he died, she doesn’t deserve such harsh words.” She was wiping tears away from her face again, eyes fixed on the body cradled in Inuyasha’s arms.

“Only fools believe that kindness makes up for a face. That has nothing to do with it.”

“Rin. Why are you crying?” Sesshoumaru fixed Rin with a piercing stare, and she responded with a deep bow, shifting her cloudy eyes to his boots.

“We’ve lost Isao-san this morning due to an unknown illness, and Ryssa-sama was trying to help him. She was the only one who believed him, and now he’s gone.” Rin buried her face in her hands, shoulders shaking.

“That… and…” Ryssa had caught up to the conversation late, finally tearing her eyes away from the strange little monster next to Sesshoumaru’s boot. She had to force herself not to glance back at it as she spoke. “I’m interested in shedding some light on this mystery I fell into. The best way to go about that is to find similarities between the victim in Tokyo and Isao-san. I found a peculiar mark on the radius of the previous victim which I think…”

“You cut people’s bodies up a lot, huh?” Inuyasha snarled.

“That’s what you took from that?” She rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Yes, that is my job, it’s how I make my living, and it actually helps numerous people find closure and justice. I won’t apologize for that.”

“Exact knowledge of such things is an asset, to be sure.” Miroku peered at Inuyasha sideways, as if watching for an explosion, then turned back to Ryssa. “But what could you possibly hope to find in Isao-san’s body to help?”

“As I was saying before I was interrupted,” Ryssa glared at Inuyasha, “I found a mark on the radius of the previous victim. Almost like a circular saw was wrapped around the bone. The body also decomposed at a rapid rate and…” Ryssa lowered her gaze to the ground, a crease between her brows. She had seen something else on Mr. Martinez’s body just before she was lured out of her lab by the monster. Her eyes widened as they shot back up. “I found a white hair. He aged at a similar rate to Isao-san here.”

She didn’t say anything out loud, but the burned state of Mr. Martinez’s body was a stark contrast to Isao’s case. If she managed to confirm more similarities between the two deaths, there would still be no explanation for the charred flesh of the first. Only the well-established history of bodies being burned to prevent identification of unique features.

"If Ryssa-sama thinks that she can find out what happened to Isao-san with her methods, we should let her do it," Rin said, set jaw showing beneath the tears dripping from it. "Since Isao-san had no family, we're responsible for finding out what happened to him. And maybe we can stop it from happening to someone else."

Inuyasha glared at Ryssa. "And what if she's the one causing this?"

Ryssa crossed her arms. "Why would I want to examine the body if I was the one causing it?"

"To throw us off the scent!"

"Well, you can see how well that plan would work, can't you?"

"In all probability, Ryssa-sama wouldn't bother throwing anyone off the scent if she had the power to make something like this happen to a man in his prime," Miroku said.

Jaken cackled. "She may not be able to do that, but she’s far from innocent of having strange powers!"

Ryssa’s mouth hung open again at the sight of the little monster, creased brow reappearing, but recovering much faster this time. "What?"

"If it looks like a demon and smells like a demon..."

Jaken's riddle of a response only served to fray Ryssa's last nerve. "Alright, fine, demon, if you insist. Can we just get Isao to a table so that I can get some data? At this rate, the body will be fully decomposed before we reach a consensus!"

Everyone paused to blink at her for her outburst for a moment, but Miroku broke into the silence with an ultimatum. "Inuyasha, we can take him to my house, since my family is out currently."

"Are you seriously going to..." he began.

"It is too late for Isao-san, and I grow more worried about whether there are more cases happening as we speak, or even more that have happened before Ryssa-sama came of which we were unaware." Miroku gave her a curt nod. "If there is any possibility that Ryssa-sama may be able to point us in the direction of this creature, we may be able to prevent more of these evils."

Inuyasha snorted, but complied, turning toward the hill behind Rin’s house. They hadn't taken two steps when Sesshoumaru's voice was heard once more. "Rin." It barely sounded like a protest, given his level voice. 

Rin turned back to him, brows knitted and head bowed. "I must go with them, Sesshoumaru-sama. It is my duty to Isao-san for failing him."

"You didn't..." Ryssa bit off the rest of her sentence at the sight of Rin’s sheepish glance at her. She paused, then tried again from a different angle. "Listen, the three of us are perfectly capable of getting this done, and I wouldn't want your..." Her gaze shifted toward Sesshoumaru. "... Friend here to hold me responsible for your exposure to such a graphic procedure. You should stay here and visit and..."

"Isao-san's good rest is worth it, and I'm no stranger to anything graphic," Rin declared. Before Ryssa could raise another argument, Rin made a small gasp. "Sesshoumaru-sama?"

He had stepped away from their group in the opposite direction. "If you are performing errands, there is no reason for me to wait. I will come again tomorrow."

"Would you... come with instead?" Rin asked. "I don't wish to burden you, but if you were there as well... Since Kohaku isn't here."

At first, Sesshoumaru hesitated, letting his eyes flicker between all of the people standing behind Rin. When his gaze landed on Inuyasha, the corner of his mouth twitched downward the slightest amount, and Inuyasha’s frown grew ten times heavier. Sesshoumaru looked back to Rin, lingered, then he nodded at her minutely.

"But, Sesshoumaru-sama..." Jaken said.

"Damn..." Inuyasha mumbled. 

Ryssa glanced back around at Isao and gave her head a rapid shake. "Very well, very well, a whole party for the autopsy, if need be. Let's get this over with."

"What a waste of time..." Jaken muttered. He followed the rest of them in climbing the hill after an icy glare from Sesshoumaru.

Miroku's house was a palace compared to most of the tiny huts in the village below, including Rin’s. It was stilted, with a walkway around the edge, and a fair number of rooms. He directed them toward a room at the back that was empty. "I am afraid there are no tables here big enough to hold Isao-san, but perhaps this will do?"

Ryssa’s eyes traveled along the planks of the walls to the soft, crackling tatami mats beneath her feet. "I've never worked while I was sitting on the floor before, but it shouldn’t pose a problem." Inuyasha laid out Isao on the floor and Ryssa sat next to him. She pulled free the belt of his peasant’s robe and proceeded to lift each side from his body. "Can someone take notes? I want a thorough record of this."

"I can write," Miroku replied. "I'll just need to fetch some paper and a brush."

"Very good." Ryssa began to push and prod at Isao's bare chest. "I'll need the sharpest knives you have as well. A pair of chopsticks to use as forceps shouldn't hurt either."

Rin was trembling. "Oh, Isao-san..."

"You were so brave before and now your nerves are so delicate," Jaken snapped. 

Rin glared at him. "Isao-san was my friend. Jaken-sama can be so cruel."

Jaken shrugged his tiny shoulders and leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes as he folded his fingers over his belly. "Things were so much simpler when you were a child and had no sense of duty. Wake me when this dull business is over."

Ryssa raised an eyebrow at him while he drifted into a nap. Since his yellow, bulbous eyes were shut, she could afford to stare. Green protruding face was covered in scars and mottled patches, and from the various states of healing, Ryssa could see the abuse and beatings were frequent. She counted three fingers on each hand and two toes on each miniscule foot, but her eyes fixed themselves onto the long white sleeve next to them. Ryssa let them wander up to Sesshoumaru’s face, but shifted them down to Isao again in a flash. Sesshoumaru’s eyes were locked on her in a steady gaze. He had been watching her watching Jaken.

Miroku returned, carefully carrying three knives in one hand, and a scroll of rice-paper in the other. "I hope these will serve your purposes?"

"They'll do," Ryssa said, indicating the spot on her right she wanted him to place them with a nod. She held one of them up and squinted at the edge. They were duller than she was used to, and she perceived a chip near the tip. Sighing, she set the knife down. "Don't try to make the notes pretty. Write as small and accurately as possible, and don't worry if it doesn't look beautiful. This isn't poetry."

"Understood," Miroku said. 

"Also, I would like to start a system of naming in case we find more cases that we need to keep straight. Mr. Martinez was subject 01. Isao-san will be referred to in your document as subject 02."

Inuyasha scoffed. "Using his name didn't occur to you, huh?"

"And I want you to record everything I say, unless I specify that it is off the record. For example, I would like to address Inuyasha-san off the record." Ryssa turned an another glare toward Inuyasha. "Do you think you can keep your mouth shut for the rest of this? I can't continue to be distracted by your comments every five seconds."

She heard a small chuckle, and Ryssa looked back up to see a smirk planted on Sesshoumaru's face. Upon seeing this himself, Inuyasha shot up from his seat on the floor. "You should be less worried about what I say and more about what I'm going to do to you if you do anything I don't like to Isao's body! Just get on with it and hope I don't have any reason to think you're too dangerous to live!"

"I'm sure you can at least evaluate my level of danger quietly?" Ryssa suggested.

"If I'm talking, I'm not sharpening my claws on you." Inuyasha held them up. "Just be grateful for that."

"I'm sure we can agree that if Ryssa-sama does anything untoward, we will all be within our boundaries to stop her," Miroku said, tone sharp as he looked between the brothers. "Until then, we should proceed quietly. Out of respect for Isao-san."

Inuyasha turned his glower to Sesshoumaru for a moment before resting it on Ryssa again. He took a step toward the door, stopped, and growled. After a stomp that rattled the room, he collapsed onto his backside again and crossed his arms. Ryssa glanced around the circle, looking for any more dissenters, but Inuyasha was the only one pouting.

She opened her mouth to announce the time and date, but blushed when it didn't issue. Whether this was exactly 500 years in the past, or if that was only an approximation, or if she could refer to the Gregorian calendar without a slew of questions afterward caused a few moments of hesitation. She didn't ask, just cleared her throat and continued on to the content. "Subject 02 suffered from an episode of accelerated aging due to contact with unknown catalyst. Assumed wrongful death."

Inuyasha scoffed again, but didn't make any more wisecracks. He kept quiet for the rest of the outer exam, but there were still interruptions. Miroku wasn't familiar with her professional terminology , and she tried to adjust her language to words he could understand. She was so used to referring to body parts by their official names that the colloquial terms weren't as easy to say while she was making her observations. Her pauses to search her head for the layman's terms slowed down the process quite a bit, and Jaken was the next one to interject.

"What a stuttering fool! And you said this was your job!" Ryssa closed her eyes and counted to ten in her head while Jaken yawned. "Are you almost done yet?"

"I'm done looking at the outside," Ryssa said. "All that remains is the inside." She looked over at Inuyasha as she picked up one of the knives at her side, waiting for him to put up another fight.

He glared at her for a moment, but when she didn't cringe, he sighed. "Don't do a whole bunch of extra stuff. Just look wherever you need to look and nowhere else, you got that?"

All of the usual essential report areas were already on the tip of her tongue, but she bit them back. It was best not to debate the implications of his instructions, because it was a good compromise, and because she wasn't able to do the job properly in any other aspect either. 

She settled the blade on Isao's wrist, a few centimeters down from the place that she remembered the mark having been on Mr. Martinez, just in case she botched the cut. Nearly everyone was leaning forward to see what she was doing, despite their wrinkled noses and pulled faces. Ryssa flayed the skin away from the bone upward on the arm, followed by the degenerated muscles and sinew until she could see the bone clearly and...

There was no mark. She looked a little further up the arm, but there was nothing. She even went so far as to round the body and check the other arm, using the same cut as for the other and giving it as minute an examination. She sat back on her ankles and sighed. "Well, so much for that clue..."

Her failed deduction had her slumped, but she perked up again when she heard Sesshoumaru's voice behind her. "You have yet to check the ribs."

Ryssa blinked and twisted around. "Qu'est-ce que c'est?"

"The ribs, of course." Miroku's fist dropped into his hand and he nodded at Sesshoumaru. "You don't suggest this has anything to do with the red string of fate?"

Sesshoumaru didn’t reply. Ryssa shook her head. "I'm sorry, I was under the impression that the red string was supposed to connect the pinkie fingers of individuals?" At least, that's what she had always heard. Folklore never stuck with her.

"It depends on what kind of relationship the individuals have," Miroku explained. "There are many different ways individuals can be connected through fate, and so many different places where they can be connected. The rib is certainly not out of the question."

"I see…" It sounded to Ryssa like fairy tales and moon beams. Yet the rabbit hole was already so deep, with dog-eared boys, a toad-like toadie and time travel, she saw no way to claw her way out. She shrugged. "I suppose it couldn't hurt to take a look."

"Wait a minute. You looked where you found it on the other guy and it wasn't there. That's enough." Inuyasha had stood again, looming over her with a heavy glower.

"I shouldn't just ignore a suggestion. If there's any chance..."

"Sesshoumaru's not the kind of guy I would take a suggestion from," Inuyasha said. He had his eyes narrowed at Sesshoumaru now, but Sesshoumaru held a steady gaze in the opposite direction.

"Let us simply check the ribs just above his heart to see if there is any connection, and after that we shall bury poor Isao-san," Miroku said.

Inuyasha turned his glare on him. "You always get so fixated on that 'fate' word, don't you? What a joke." He didn't make a move to stop Ryssa when she laid the blade of her knife to Isao's skin, though. 

She performed the same actions on Isao's breast as she did on his arms and peeled away the outer layers of flesh to expose the bones underneath. She called on Miroku to hold the flesh back while she cleaned the rib enough to see it properly. He did so with a shuddering breath, but a gentle hand. Ryssa squinted, turning her head this way and that as she brushed at each of Isao's ribs. 

Her finger felt a jagged groove in the one just above his heart, and she blinked again. Ryssa turned to Sesshoumaru, meeting his impassive gaze with wide eyes. "You're right. Here it is."


	7. Fate and Gods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not ready to return to the fearsome well, Ryssa tries to gather more information to clear the mystery in front of her.

"Thank you very much, Miroku-san." Ryssa dipped her hands into the bucket of water gratefully. Working an autopsy with bare hands had left them red and sticky. During the procedure, she hadn't batted an eye, but now seeing the blood directly on her hands made her queasy. "I'll be sure to clean your floor and knives as well."

"I do not think my family and I will be using those knives again, If I'm truthful." Miroku gave her a wobbly smile that suggested she wasn't the only one who was feeling ill. 

"Understandable," Ryssa said, smiling back. 

"It's a funny thing. I have seen my fair share of carnage, and I have buried many victims of it, but what we've done today has affected me in a way none of that has in a long while."

Ryssa sighed. She was still scrubbing at her hands. "It's not something many people can stomach right off the bat. It took some getting used to when I first entered the field. When I went to school, I couldn't even look at an autopsy without getting so sick I thought I would throw up." She laughed before looking back up at Miroku. "Speaking of burying victims, I assume you'll be going with Inuyasha to do just that?"

"Yes, he is very anxious to put Isao-san to rest," Miroku said.

"Well, he is very welcome. I only wish I could thank Isao-san for his help as well." 

"You could join us."

Ryssa paused, eyes scanning the floor as she rubbed the goose bumps away from her arm. "No, I really shouldn’t leave your house in this state. It was my insistence that put a mess there."

"Very well. I shall return in a little while." Miroku stepped out the door, bowing his head to Rin as he passed her oscillating on the path that led down the hill to the village. She peered back into the house, then beckoned. Ryssa went out to greet her, grabbing the cloth next to the basin as she went.

"I was hoping I hadn't scared or offended you enough to stop you talking to me ever again," Ryssa said, aggressively wringing her hands in the cloth until they were pink. 

"Oh no, Ryssa-sama! It wasn't so bad as that. I just wish that Isao-san had not had to go through that." Rin played with a stray thread on her kimono.

"Inuyasha doesn't think he did," Ryssa said.

"But now we know that this has something to do with the red thread of fate, right?" Rin asked.

Ryssa shifted her weight while she matched the ends on the cloth. She frowned at its lack of symmetry. "I... suppose that's the working theory at this time. It's produced predictable results, at the very least." But there was too much this ‘fate’ concept didn’t explain. She could have used the word ‘basketball’ instead, and it would have been just as useful.

"It's the only thing that makes any sense, isn't it?"

Ryssa opened her mouth to point out that sense was relative when Jaken stomped over to them. "Don't you think we've wasted enough time here? Let's get going already!"

Ryssa forced her eyes away from the creature to avoid staring and accumulating yet more questions she couldn’t articulate about who or what he could be. Scanning the horizon, she spotted Sesshoumaru looking off the hill into the forest beyond with a steady, unblinking gaze while Jaken made his attempts to collect Rin. His suggestion to check Isao's rib, though offhand, was the most definitive help she had gotten since the autopsy began, and she wasn’t about the let a person with such valuable observations walk away. She strode over to him with her hand outstretched. "Sesshoumaru-san, it was a pleasure having you present for the autopsy today."

Sesshoumaru looked down at her hand with an eyebrow raised. Jaken ran back toward him, his little fists waving. "That's Sesshoumaru-SAMA, you ignorant wretch! And what do you think you're doing, presuming to touch him?"

Ryssa mirrored Sesshoumaru's look at her hand when she turned to Jaken. "My apologies." She glanced between the tall man and the short green creature for a moment more before putting back on a smile. "It occurred to me that you gentlemen might have some expertise on the subject of this thread of fate, and I was hoping I could call upon it again in the future. Is there any way I can contact you, or..."

Both of them stared at her with widened eyes, Jaken’s beak-like mouth opening and closing with guttural rage emitting from it. Ryssa looked away. "Yes, well, I suppose I can talk to Rin if ever I need to get a hold of you in the future. Again, thank you."

Ryssa waited until she was safely behind Miroku’s door again to hide her red face behind her palms. Offering a handshake was a reflex to her, but no one had ever looked at her like she had a second head for the habit before. If the reaction to her question was any indication, there was little chance Sesshoumaru would come near her again. It was little consolation that Miroku would be back soon, though he was more sociable and apt to share his wisdom on the ‘red thread’ business. 

He brought the topic up himself when he invited her to stay in the house for the night. "Since Inuyasha is against the idea of your presence in their house another night, and I am quite lonely when my family is away, I hope you will keep me company this evening. It feels like fate that I had come back home at such a time."

"He didn't like me from the beginning, so I'm not surprised," Ryssa said.

Miroku smiled. "He is naturally suspicious of strangers."

"Kagome said the same thing."

"All of us have known him a long time, including my beloved wife, Sango. He is slow to trust, and even slower to show respect. It is because he's a half-demon." Miroku’s gaze wandered to another corner of the room. "He was hunted and treated poorly for being neither human nor demon so long that he had to be wary of every new person he came across."

"I certainly can't blame him for that." The word ‘demon’ still meant nothing to her, but his appearance alone was almost a guarantee for bullying and abuse. Even in the individualistic United States of America, those ears would have gotten him teased. "They say people mimic the behavior they expect of others just to head it off. It's a very common coping mechanism."

"That it is, Ryssa-sama!" Miroku laughed. "Though I have seen no such behavior from you. How do you cope with all that has happened to you so far?"

Ryssa peered at his knowing smirk. How she had snapped at and made fun of Inuyasha and Kagome, been authoritarian and bossy, returned to her. Then she mimicked his smirk. "You haven't seen the mimicry because you don't know where I got it from."

Whether it was Miroku's habit to laugh as much as he did, or if she was just especially funny, wasn’t clear. "Fair enough. Where did you get it from?"

"A few different sources. Some of them peers that I was burned by. Mostly it's characters that I admire with an impeccable sense of focus, but not many social skills." Ryssa was the one chuckling now. "Though to be honest, I could have done just mimicking the former. It's an act, really. I'm just pretending to be that working sociopath. Sometimes I pretend better than others."

"It's a very simple act for you to keep up, I see."

"In times like these, very." Being a working sociopath had been very helpful so far in keeping her focus from being pulled in every direction she happened across. Inuyasha’s ears, nose, claws, Jaken’s appearance, fate… It was all too far beyond her scope of expertise, and trying to explain it all as it came up would have had her yanking out her hair.

A knock sounded on the door. Miroku stood and slid it aside for Kagome to cross the threshold. She smiled at Ryssa as soon as she saw her. "I thought for sure you'd be heading back to the well after all of this mess, so when Inuyasha told me that you were staying with Miroku-sama now, I was pretty surprised."

"When you put it that way, now so am I," Ryssa said. 

"What way did you put it to justify it?" Miroku’s question came with an upward tone at the end.

"It's not so much a justification as a fear." Ryssa let the statement hang without elaboration, but Kagome was nodding, brows knitted. She had heard the Ryssa’s story about the creature that lured her there, and told her own similar tale. 

"I'm sorry,” she said, looking at her feet. "It's not something even I understand, and it's unsettling to think about. I'm glad you decided to stay though! I didn't, at least at first." Kagome wore a strange, sheepish look, but Ryssa didn't ask her what she meant by it. It might have prolonged an analysis of her fear.

"There is something else I'd like to investigate before I make my attempts..." Ryssa shifted to make her pause come across as more natural and less like stalling. "About this 'fate' concept..."

"It is the driving force of all the events in everyone's lives. It is the string that connects all beings in the world," Miroku explained.

"Simple enough," Ryssa said, "but how does it work? How does it function?"

"The answer to that, I'm afraid only the gods must know."

Ryssa sighed. "That's not good enough, I'm afraid." 

"I don't think you can get any other answer, to be honest," Kagome said, a little sigh escaping her.

"If fate is a natural, concrete part of reality, a more descriptive answer should exist somewhere." Kagome and Miroku looked at each other with eyebrows raised. "You've just slapped this label of 'fate' onto this phenomenon that you have no idea how it works, but if this is really an integral part of how our lives work, and how the deaths of both our subjects worked, we need to find out more. I can't be satisfied with a 'that's just how things are' answer."

"A moving notion, Ryssa-sama," Miroku said. "How do you suggest we find out more?"

Ryssa relapsed into silence, gaze shifting to the side. The methods of testing a nebulous concept like the one described were not easy to imagine. What kinds of experiments could they run to determine the inner cogs? If everything was already planned out by this mechanism to work out a certain way within certain perimeters, what hypothesis could test that? No one had bothered before her inquiry, and it was easy to see why.

The scrutinizing faces of her hosts pressurized the room, but after a shrug she managed to put forth a hesitant idea. "Well, you said only the gods know. How does one contact gods?"


	8. Proposal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshoumaru returns with a potential job for Ryssa.

There wasn't much for her to do. Kagome and Miroku had taken on the responsibility of contacting gods, their spiritual leadership of the community already putting them in a prime position to do so. They also advised her not to try anything on her own, since she handled dead things for a living. As tainted as humans themselves saw simple butchers in most communities, it was anyone’s guess how much worse a god might see someone butchering human bodies. She wasn’t about to argue, given her lack of experience and spirituality. Sill, being excluded from her own suggestion for her profession didn’t put a smile on her face either. They hadn't classified her as a full untouchable, but the ultimatum didn’t sound any prettier for it.

She managed to keep herself busy, though. Two days after she began staying at Miroku's home, his pregnant wife and four children returned. Following an interrogation of Miroku to make sure he hadn't done anything untoward to or with their female house guest, Sango was quite cordial, and Ryssa spent a day or so getting to know her and their children. They were a family of warriors who spent as much time introducing and describing their weapons as they did themselves.

Otherwise, she was spending her time with Rin. Her unflagging smile made her a magnet for Ryssa, whose frown was now perpetual. With most everyone else, Ryssa could see the furtive glances and whispers hidden behind hands. Walking through the village had become an exercise in dodging said looks and gossip, even some spit from time to time.

Rin’s gestures, however, were open and without apology. She admitted that thinking about the autopsy made her sad, but she never insinuated to Ryssa that these feelings reflected on her. In fact, whenever Ryssa came around, she greeted her with such warmth that it took Ryssa a long time to leave, and a short time to rise in the morning for another visit. Rin never turned her away, even when she was working with someone ill. It was actually at these times that Ryssa couldn’t look away from her. She was serious in assessments, but never pessimistic, and it made an interesting contrast to observe her hard work with a patient while she entertained them with a smile and happy chatter.

"I'm envious of your attitude," Ryssa told her, examining that undefeatable smile and beacon of happiness. "You're always so cheerful. How do you do it?"

"Not always!" Rin said through a laugh. "Since being an adult means more worries and responsibilities, I'm not as carefree as when I was a child. I am better at hiding when I'm not in the best mood these days, though, and smiling usually makes it easier to brave hardship."

"Very wise," Ryssa said.

"Even though I was happier when I was little, I had blacker moods too. I used to throw the most unseemly tantrums when Sesshoumaru-sama left me behind to go somewhere dangerous."

"If you don't mind my asking," Ryssa set down the tea that Rin had prepared her, "what exactly is your relationship? You said you knew him when you were a child?"

"Oh, yes! I found him injured in the forest outside my village when I was just a little thing. He rescued me, so I wanted to follow him. Sesshoumaru-sama became something like a father to me.” She picked up her own tea, breathing in the steam rising from it.

“Where was your biological father?” Rin tilted her head and knit her brows, so Ryssa rephrased. “Did you have a father who took care of you before Sesshoumaru?”

Rin’s lips twitched downward. “Yes, but he and my mother and brothers were murdered by bandits before Sesshoumaru-sama came. The villagers were unkind to me, too, so there was no one to look after me.” 

Ryssa made a small flinch and shifted her eyes to the side. “I’m sorry that happened.”

“I would never have met Sesshoumaru-sama otherwise, right?” Rin’s smile lifted again as Ryssa gave her a stilted nod. “Sesshoumaru-sama has been kind to me. He protected me and provided me with nice things, even as I was living in this poor village with Kaede-sama." Rin’s unfocused gaze was locked on the ceiling.

"Why did you start living in the village then?" Ryssa asked.

"It's dangerous traveling with Sesshoumaru-sama." Rin didn't elaborate, the fixed nature of her smile suggested some pain behind it. "Besides, he wanted me to learn to live with humans. Sesshoumaru-sama said that for a girl as talkative as me, wandering with him for the rest of my life would be lonely." 

"I suppose that means Sesshoumaru-sama is not human?" 

"Of course! Sesshoumaru-sama is a demon!"

Ryssa took a deep breath, preparing for another run-around. "Can you explain to me exactly what that means? Because he looked like he had a human shape to me."

"Well, yes, some demons can take human shape," Rin said. "Some demons are human spirits who are trapped in an angry or hurt state. Demons are usually malevolent and cause trouble and destruction, but some of them are good and kind, like Sesshoumaru-sama. I can't really explain it very well... You would be better to ask Kagome-sama when you next see her."

"I... see." The ‘spirit’ term obscured the definition more than before. A spirit could be further defined by this other undefined term, and that one by another, leading to an infinite regression of explanations with no solid grounding. Ryssa sighed, but tried to disguise it as blowing on her tea.

"I'm sorry I can't be of more help, Ryssa-sama," Rin said.

"Oh, no, don't apologize. There just seems to be... a lot I have to learn." The best lies were the ones closest to the truth. Ryssa cleared her throat. "So, what is it that Sesshoumaru-sama does that's so dangerous?"

"Well..." Just then a sneeze rang out in the distance. "Huh?"

A string of curses were uttered in a high-pitch, the sound coming nearer. "That voice sounds familiar," Ryssa said.

"But it's Jaken-sama!" Rin jumped up and rushed to the door before there was a knock. She stuck her head out the door and exclaimed, "Sesshoumaru-sama!"

"Rin." Sesshoumaru nodded at her as she stepped aside and he glided over the threshold. Jaken followed, with a line of snot dribbling from the hole where his nose must have been. He sniffled. 

"Are you ill, Jaken-sama?" Rin asked.

"I've told you a thousand times, child, I do not get sick!" Jaken shouted back.

"What about that time when...?" 

"Never mind that, we're not here for you anyway. We're here for that wretch!" Jaken pointed a tiny clawed finger at Ryssa.

She blinked. "What have I done now? I’m not being blamed for another blight on someone’s crops, am I?"

After a moment of silence, Jaken started making a series of strange guttural noises. This stopped the second Sesshoumaru spoke. "This Sesshoumaru has come seeking, how did you put it? Your expertise." 

Ryssa blinked again. “I was beginning to think no one wanted anything to do with my expertise." Her eyes narrowed. "Why? What use would you have for body identification?"

"It is not identification," Sesshoumaru said. He turned to his servant. "Jaken."

Jaken cleared his throat and pulled a scroll from one of his sleeves. He unrolled it and showed the name on the paper to her as he began. "Sesshoumaru-sama's most esteemed mother has been burgled! One of her former guards disappeared with a treasure most valuable, and she has entrusted her son with his punishment. This Gorou of the Guard appears to have made himself untraceable with a witch's spell, and a witch's spell must bring him back to vision."

Ryssa shifted her squint between Jaken and Sesshoumaru. Something appeared to be missing from the story. "So this is just to get something back for your mother?"

Sesshoumaru glanced at Jaken, a brief look drawing his brows down the slightest amount. "This is to return one of my father's artifacts to its rightful place. My mother is not the only one who has been wronged."

"And now that it seems Gorou seeks to destroy Sesshoumaru-sama with this artifact, it is paramount that we..." Sesshoumaru's fist came down on Jaken's head so swiftly that if Ryssa had blinked, she would have missed it.

Rin's eyes were shining and her hands were wringing in her lap. "Sesshoumaru-sama, it's not serious, is it?"

Sesshoumaru's expression softened when he looked at her. "There is no danger to this Sesshoumaru."

"Of course, how foolish of me, to imply that Sesshoumaru-sama should ever be felled by such a..." Ryssa could see Sesshoumaru's face darken again, so she interrupted Jaken’s prattle.

"That's a cool story, bro, but..."

"What on earth did you call me?" Jaken screeched. 

"Bro?" Ryssa repeated.

Jaken sputtered as he clenched his fists. "I am not your brother!"

"But we look so much alike." Simple and quick as the statement was, it caused both Rin and Jaken to stare open-mouthed at her. They both burst into a chorus of protests and accusations, each taking a different track. Jaken was declaring Ryssa was either stupid, blind, or crazy to think they looked alike. Rin was trying to impress upon her that she was very beautiful, and lamenting how cruel to herself Ryssa could be. Over the course of the cacophony, Ryssa allowed out a little scoff, but took a deep breath to suppress the a longer laugh. "What is it that you want with me? None of the things you've mentioned about this issue have anything to do with forensics."

Jaken screeched, "A witch is the one who cast the spell, and a witch has to brew the spell to break it! You're the only witch I've seen around this place, aren't you?" Ryssa observed the bump forming on Jaken’s head rising along with his pitch.

"First I'm a demon, and now I'm a witch." It was impossible to tell if that was an improvement.

"Idiot! A witch is a kind of demon!" Jaken shouted.

"Listen, gentlemen." Ryssa stood and sighed. "I don't know the first thing about brewing spells or anything of the sort, so I'm afraid I'm ill-equipped to do anything for you. Besides, I'm occupied at the moment. I have another project that requires my attention." She let the half-truth linger on the air, keeping the part where she had to wait for Kagome to return to continue the project. She smiled with a slight tilt of her head at Sesshoumaru, then prepared to walk past him out the door. 

He caught her by the arm before she could leave and stared at her. He didn't look angry, just blank, and she couldn’t hazard a guess as to what was going on in his head. Ryssa's eyes grew wide as his gaze remained locked on hers for thirty seconds or more. "You are able to identify human parts. It will be simple for you to collect them."

Ryssa hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath until she let it out, slow and shaky. Her intake of breath trembled as well, but she tried not to let it show. "I told you, I already have a prior engagement."

Rin piped up from the other side of the room. "Kagome-sama and Miroku-sama may take some time to contact a god, Ryssa-sama. You should go with Sesshoumaru-sama!"

"Any business you could have in this village is a joke anyway. It's not as though gods have anything useful to say," Jaken huffed, tiny arms crossed.

Ryssa looked back at Sesshoumaru. He was still gazing at her in that placid way, and it made her uncomfortable in a manner that the villager's suspicious glances never did. At least in the village, she had Rin to keep her company. All she would have with Sesshoumaru and Jaken would be that scrutinizing stare. Not to mention, just a few minutes earlier, Rin had mentioned traveling with Sesshoumaru was dangerous. 

But whether it was the lack of power ‘no’ appeared to have in this situation or the prospect of having something to do, Ryssa sighed and held up her free hand. "Fine. If nothing else, I'll get to stretch my legs."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the first paragraph, an "untouchable" class of people is referenced. You can read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin


	9. Impossible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone drops in on Sesshoumaru with deadly intent, and Ryssa can't believe the things he can do.

Ryssa hadn't taken a day-long hike since she was an undergraduate, but even that hadn't been in the kind of rough terrain Sesshoumaru, Jaken and herself had covered that day. Her shoes had no tread to speak of, and that had made it all the more painful to step on the stones and sticks in their path. As she removed them, she couldn’t make out the clean and shiny leather she had worn before she fell into the well. Now a combination of scratches, mud and burrs had made them unrecognizable. 

The story wasn't much better for her feet. She had quite a few big blisters, and any skin lacking abscesses was red and sore. Ryssa sighed, every place she prodded was accompanied with a flinch. Despite the pain, she had to swallow a giggle around the mental image of asking one of her companions for a massage. She couldn't hide the restrained smile, however. "What are you smirking about?" Jaken asked.

She avoided the answer by posing her own question. "Do you know where the nearest stream is?" Without a word, Sesshoumaru lifted a clawed finger to point to his left as he rested against a wide-trunked tree. Ryssa's smile grew wider as her fantasy restricted itself just to Sesshoumaru. "Thanks, I'll be back."

While she limped off, she heard Jaken call after her, "Don't you dare get lost, you silly woman!" She waved away his instructions like they were an annoying bee. 

It was a short walk away. It wasn't so much a stream as a tiny trickle of water running over some sand, but it was just big enough to contain her aching feet. The cold water made her hiss at first, but it turned into a sigh at the sensation of the water rushing past her blisters. She leaned back and grabbed a small box from her bag.

Rin had packed her a few provisions for her trip, during which she couldn't stop talking about how she wished she could travel with Sesshoumaru-sama for a little while again. Ryssa echoed that wish, and let slip how little she was looking forward to having company that would either be silent or abrasive to her. Rin told her the trip wouldn’t be nearly as bad as she thought, but Ryssa had to force a smile at the optimistic statement.

It turned out not to be as unrealistic as it sounded. The first night was quiet and without incident; the silence peaceful rather than uncomfortable. The walk in the wilderness brought her back to her childhood of running around in the middle of nowhere, and her company was so quiet as to give the illusion she was there by herself. This day played out much the same way, aside from the increased discomfort that came with traveling on foot for two days straight. Tomorrow promised the same pattern. 

Her creeping hunger did pose a looming problem in the future, however. The rations Rin had boxed for her were already halved, the empty space growing as she nibbled on some rice and nuts. Her traveling companions directed the path they took without a rest until evening, both nights. Her body was used to one meal a day when she got immersed in her work, but the physical activity and sparse food was a combination that caused her stomach to growl. Foraging along the way was out of the question, since her knowledge of the local flora was nonexistent. Fishing when the party stopped for the day appeared to be her only option. 

Ryssa sighed again and pulled her feet out of the stream. As her head filled with possible baits and fishing pole designs, as well as ways to preserve fish without a nice cold refrigerator, she wandered back into Sesshoumaru and Jaken's midst. Sesshoumaru hadn't moved from his spot by the tree, but Jaken was bustling, having just finished setting up a campfire and two sticks with roasting fish on them.

"I’m impressed with your mind-reading abilities, Jaken," Ryssa said.

"What?" he snapped, eyes narrowing the moment he heard her voice.

"I was just thinking of how one catches fish here. Share your technique?"

"Figure it out yourself!"

"Come now, how are we ever going to become friends if we don't share things with each other?" Ryssa sidled up to the fire to warm her now freezing toes.

"I don't want to become friends with you!" Jaken turned the sticks around to get a flame going on the other side of his fish. "Sesshoumaru-sama is the only companionship I need."

Ryssa looked over at Sesshoumaru, who had turned to face them when he heard his name. Having made the minimal effort to make sure no one was calling out to him in distress, he looked the other way again. Ryssa chuckled. "Your social needs are low maintenance."

"What are you laughing at?" Jaken asked.

"You." Before Jaken could splutter out another indignant reply, Ryssa held up her hands. "It's endearing, that's all. Your loyalty."

He scoffed, then cast a fleeting glance at her blistered toes. "You're cheerful for a weakling who gets injuries from walking."

"I’ll be frowning tomorrow, I assure you." Ryssa examined one of her blisters. The pain was only numbed by the cold water, and she would be feeling it in full force when she put weight on her soles in the morning. "And I’ll be cursing about being part of this adventure in the first place, but I take advantage of the cheer when I've got it."

"Just remember, Sesshoumaru-sama won't stand for any rudeness from you!"

"Cheers." Ryssa nodded at Sesshoumaru as he looked in their direction again. He made no acknowledgment that he had seen her gesture, and returned to his absent stare at the trees in front of him. She scanned the trees for a moment herself, searching for whatever held Sesshoumaru's gaze. It wasn't long before she silently blamed the unengaging prattle that drove his selective hearing and stretched herself on the ground to look up at the emerging stars.

No sooner had her head found a comfortable spot on the earth when an ear-splitting crack sounded through the night. A branch came crashing down out of the canopy and nearly landed on Ryssa when Sesshoumaru appeared with a sudden slash from one of the swords at his hip. The branch exploded into splinters and rattled onto the forest floor. Ryssa propped herself on her elbows and blinked. 

A man dropped out of the sky from the area the branch had fallen, landing light. Sesshoumaru swung at him with the sword, but the man was too nimble, and jumped back. In the twilight, it was difficult to make out the stranger's appearance, but he looked to be carrying a tall guard staff and have glowing yellow eyes shining beneath his helmet. He was laughing, but Sesshoumaru spoke in a low tone. "Did you think that because you had hidden your scent, you would be able to dispatch me so easily?"

"I was testing out my new cloak, is all. When I come back, my next attack will not be so loud." The man's sneer was only visible by the white of his teeth.

"Don’t waste my time." Sesshoumaru charged like a bullet, but his enemy was fast enough to dodge. He jumped out of the way with ease and threw something at Sesshoumaru in the act. It looked like a ball of condensed smoke, expanding as soon as it reached the spot from which Sesshoumaru leapt away. The edge of the bubble nicked his sleeve, which sizzled and melted away.

"Do you like my dissolving powder? Unlike yours, my witch is a master of the art." The man swung a small drawstring bag around his finger with a smug smile on his face.

"That witch will no longer be necessary, since you've foolishly confronted me," Sesshoumaru said. He launched himself blade first at Gorou, who dodged again. The sword sunk into the ground, and Sesshoumaru swung around to attack with his bare claws instead. They made contact, knocking off the helmet to reveal a grayish, hollow, yet handsome face. Another swift strike from Sesshoumaru's nails dug four shallow tracks into Gorou's cheek that leaked in blue. He stumbled as Sesshoumaru retrieved his sword. 

"Your mother used to strike me like that, back when I used to think she treated me special." At this comment, Sesshoumaru wrinkled his nose and made the slightest recoil before lunging forward again. This time, his enemy leaned into the attack, bending around the sword in a way his spine shouldn't have. Ryssa's eyes were wide as she scrambled back. "Even that witch sees you have no hope. I don't even have to use your father's artifact."

Jaken was hysterical at this declaration, throwing out curses and to the lengthening villain. Ryssa was still speechless, but Sesshoumaru didn't even blink as the man's elongated fingers coiled around his wrists. "A squid, huh."

Sesshoumaru twisted his wrist and gripped the probing tentacle as the bulbous head at the top tipped back to reveal a mouth full of sharp teeth. He dug his claws through the boneless flesh, tearing through it and the arms restraining his other hand in one clean swipe. It let out a strange gurgle, arms swinging over each other to carry it backwards in retreat as it shrunk back to the form it had appeared in. Face and hands dripping blue, a glint of ice appeared in his eyes. "I will be back to take your life, Sesshoumaru."

Sesshoumaru was about to land a death-blow with his blade, but another smoke-bomb exploded. When the dust cleared, there was no trace to track the creature by. Sesshoumaru sheathed his sword with a straight expression and muttered, "He escaped..."

In contrast, Ryssa was taking in short, erratic breaths and shivering in the half-light. Jaken scoffed at her. "What are you panting about? Sesshoumaru-sama did all the work!"

"Did... Did you feed me some hallucinogens earlier or did I have a stroke? Because whatever I just saw cannot be real!" Her teeth were chattering, body wracked with frisson. 

"You're not that scared, are you?" Jaken asked, a frown overtaking his once wide smirk.

"I'm scared for my sanity!" Ryssa curled into a fetal position. "Everything I know about reality says that was impossible, but it was so vivid! Some kind of optical illusion or…"

"Don't get worked up! It wasn't even that long a fight! He was no match for Sesshoumaru-sama!" Jaken reached out in front of him like he was going to lay a hand on her shoulder, but he flinched back again when tears started streaming down her face. She didn't reply and didn't acknowledge his attempted gesture, just pressed her face into her knees and wept. The snap from the branch echoed in her brain, the sound mirroring that of her mind being broken.

She cried herself to sleep, not registering the glimpses she caught of Sesshoumaru staring.


	10. Not So Bad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryssa attempts to deal with her broken sense of reality.

Ryssa didn't say a word to either of her companions in the morning. Her fitful sleep kept her brain and body running sluggish, so it was as though clouds were obscuring her hindsight of the event. She was trapped in endless loops of coming up with explanations and tossing them aside. Worse still was her memories mixing with the images from her nightmares, twisting the occurrence into a dreamlike experience indistinguishable from fantasy. She was lost within a labyrinth of impossibility.

That alone would have reduced her pace, walking in a daze without direction or focus, but she the reality of her injured feet kept her focus split. The ground was covered in sticks and pebbles that she never saw, and walking was like stepping on long bent needles. She was slowed by her ginger steps, and Jaken complained for a full two hours when they continued their journey. "Move faster, you useless wretch! You're worse than that child was! Sesshoumaru-sama should just leave you by..."

"Jaken." Sesshoumaru stopped and turned. "Bring the beasts."

"Ah. Yes. Yes, the beasts." Jaken started off in one direction before he halted and looked back at Sesshoumaru, who was glaring at him. "Forgive me, Sesshoumaru-sama, we have not had need of them for so long. Which way...?"

Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes and pointed in the opposite direction. Jaken scrambled to reorient himself and then high-tailed it into the trees where Sesshoumaru had indicated. When Jaken disappeared, Sesshoumaru sat against another trunk, and Ryssa allowed herself a scant sigh. She dropped onto a log and took one of her abused feet in her hands. A sliver of loose skin hung out above the edge of the shoe, and she gulped, shifting her gaze to a nearby bush instead. How bad the damage was remained hidden by the scratched leather.

"I smell blood on you," Sesshoumaru said. He was staring forward, but there was no one else he could have been talking to.

"That would be the broken blisters," Ryssa croaked. She pulled her hands down her weary face. It was an easy enough deduction for him to make on his own, but it also sounded like an attempt at conversation. When he didn't make another, she threw out another obvious comment. "I’m sure you smelled like ink last night." Sesshoumaru didn't confirm or deny this with even a twitch of his head. Ryssa maintained the quiet for a few moments as her gaze raked the immaculate appearance of the man in front of her. There wasn’t a speck of ink or blood staining his white frock. The armor on that creature from the previous night had been intact between his transformations too. “What do you turn into?”

Again, she was met with silence.

“Does Jaken change shapes too?”

“He remains the same,” Sesshoumaru said, tone quiet.

Ryssa’s head gave a throb. It would have been better if Sesshoumaru had disregarded both her questions. Now the unanswered first question lingered, tugging at the corners of her mind. She shook her head to try and rid herself of the agony of possibility. She changed the subject again as a distraction. "If he annoys you so much, why are you two wandering around together?"

She saw Sesshoumaru's eyes flicker in her direction. He didn’t ask who she was talking about despite their lull in conversation. "He is useful."

"I understand that, that's why I'm here too. Apparently." How she was going to be useful to such an errand remained to be seen, but she let that matter go for the moment. "But he's been around a lot longer than I have. At least since Rin was a child. He's either been useful an awful long time, or there's something else that keeps you two tied."

Sesshoumaru turned a direct stare on her this time, his expression again unreadable. It was hard to hold his gaze for how his brows hung over his eyes, so Ryssa only managed it for a couple of seconds. She looked back down at her feet. The intimate route the fledgling talk had taken wasn't welcome, by the looks of things. She was only a stranger, after all, and one that was holding him up with her injuries as well, physical and mental.

Speaking of which, Jaken returned with "the beasts" and the sight of them was too much stimulation to Ryssa in her distressed state. "What in the world is that?"

"Something for you to ride on, no doubt." Jaken thrust the reins of a two-headed, scaly creature at her. She recoiled.

"What is it?" Ryssa repeated, her eyes traveling from the heads to the very tip of the tail. She noted that it was wearing muzzles over both its faces. 

"Dragons! Really, you should be grateful that Sesshoumaru-sama suggested it! I would have forgotten."

Ryssa gulped, reaching out a shaking hand as she stood. The dragon let out a low purr and Ryssa backed away again, shaking her head. "I can't. I can't."

"You ungrateful coward! They won't hurt you, so get up on their back and we can get going!" Jaken yelled. The two heads tossed at the shrill noise and they made their odd purring sound again. Ryssa inched further away.

"No, this is where I draw the line. My sanity can't handle wandering any further down this rabbit hole, thanks." 

"You've come this far, and the dragons are where you must stop?" Jaken shook his head and slapped his face in his palm.

Ryssa prepared to retort, but she left her mouth open for some seconds. He did have a point. The dragon wasn't the first or even the strangest thing she had seen so far. Jaken himself was weirder than the scaled mount, and she had adjusted to the reality of his existence. Still... "After what I saw last night, all bets are off. I can't handle much more than that, at least not right away!"

"It's either this, or we leave you here! Understand?!" Jaken's little beaked mouth curled into a grin. "There are much more horrible things that could happen to you in this forest than witnessing a little battle, you know."

Ryssa shivered. The laws of physics in this place didn't much resemble those from where she came, and who could say what else she might have to contend with on her own. The squid-man that attacked the night before could be a minor predator compared to what else might be lurking in the trees. Being left behind might be a death sentence to someone with her level of ignorance.

She took a deep breath and stepped forward again. Studying the creature's eyes didn't give her any sort of comfort in approaching it. They looked yellow and narrowed and menacing, but she moved forward again. She was slowly reaching out to make contact with the animal when she felt a soft pressure push her hand forward. The dragon made the purring noise again, but didn't move to strike her.

Ryssa let out a shaky sigh and looked over at Sesshoumaru with brows creased. She pulled her hand from beneath his and rolled her eyes at him. "I didn't need any push, I just..."

In the time it took to blink, she had been deposited on the animal's back, side-saddle. Ryssa glanced around at Sesshoumaru. Swift as he was putting her there, he took a leisurely pace on the trail once more. "We have no time for foolishness," he said.

A scathing reply was on the tip of Ryssa's tongue, but she bit it back. Keeping her mouth shut seemed like the better option, because the swaying of the dragon as they were pulled along by Jaken made her a little queasy, in no small part due to the fact that she was sitting atop a dragon. She snatched her hands away from the scaly hide to place them in her lap and closed her eyes to trick herself into mistaking it for a horse. A purring, growling, groaning horse.

That didn't work for long, because her balance was precarious, and was thrown off by a dip in the animal's step. She had to throw her arms out and grab the dragon's hide again, and it made a particularly loud groan at that. One of the heads tossed around to glare at her out of one of its great jaundiced eyes. "This thing does not like me. Not at all..." Ryssa mumbled, closing her eyes again, but keeping her hands a more stable position apart.

"No one here likes you! Stop your whining!" Jaken demanded.

"Glad that's cleared up. I was beginning to wonder." 

The trail wove along for a few more miles, and became more uneven as they traveled. Sesshoumaru's gait remained relaxed and graceful, but Jaken was tripping over roots and rocks at every bend. The dragon was picking its way along the ground, and eventually forced Ryssa to grip it around one of its necks. It made a grumble at her embrace, but despite her flinch, she didn't let go. On of her her feet brushed a rock in a dip along the road and the resulting pain made her mouth a silent word of thanks for her ride.

As they moved further along, it grew easier for her to appreciate the smoothness of the animal's scales beneath her fingers, and its clean water scent. No horse she had ever been around was nearly so well-groomed, and even the shock of hair that resembled a horse's mane on both the necks had fewer tangles or burrs. Was it the creature's supernatural nature to appear so refreshing, or did Sesshoumaru and Jaken put effort into its maintenance?

The trees didn't have a chance to thin out around them before the party walked out of the forest into a burst of sunlight. A long meadow stretched out in front of them, with tall grass, flowers, and a slow breeze pushing the blades and petals back and forth. The procession didn't pause, but Ryssa looked out upon the landscape as one of the most breathtaking scenes she had seen in a long time. At times, this place wasn't so bad.


	11. Battlefield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Ryssa, Sesshoumaru and Jaken collect livers, an angry priest confronts them.

Ryssa's experience in working with the dead one at a time hadn't prepared her for the battlefield. Almost every violent death by blade was represented there. There were headless and limbless corpses with plenty of other wounds. They were chopped, sliced, ground (by horse hooves no doubt), and maimed in the survivors' attempts to loot them. The smell of putrescine and rot was what ultimately got to her. She had to cover her nose and mouth to both protect her from the stench and hide the nauseated face she was making.

She cast a curious glance at Sesshoumaru, because neither he nor Jaken appeared bothered by the smell. Inuyasha had boasted being able to detect her humanity on her scent, but Sesshoumaru must not have been able to do the same, else he would have been sicker than she was. Instead, he had walked both his companions out into the middle of the carnage and stood there to look around him with a placid expression. Ryssa would have let out a sigh with a roll of her eyes, but she didn't want to waste her filtered breath.

A few moments passed, then he demanded, "You will bring three livers from this stock."

Ryssa blinked. "Livers?"

"Yes."

"From these corpses?"

His answer was a narrowed glare.

"What kind?"

"Talk normally, silly woman!" Jaken shrieked. 

Ryssa drew her hand away from her face reluctantly. Her eyes began to water when the smell wafted into her nose again. "Alright, I said, what kind?"

"What do you mean, what kind? Human, of course!" Jaken shook his head as he gave her a superior chuckle.

"But what kind of human liver?" Jaken sneered at her, but she didn't see it. She was too busy controlling her gag reflex while reaching into her bag for the knives Miroku gifted to her. "They're not all the same, you understand. For example, did this witch's spell you found specify a blood-type? Does it say what condition the liver has to be in? What if the donor had a disease of the liver, or drank to excess? Would that donor's liver be as good as a man who had no diseases?" 

Sesshoumaru fixed his placid gaze on her while the cogs turned behind it. "Any three. Bring them here," he said again.

"Are you sure?" Ryssa asked, raising her eyebrows.

"How dare you question Sesshoumaru-sama's judgment!" Sesshoumaru didn't look any more patient with her extended questioning than Jaken, narrowing his eyes at her. 

"Very well, very well, don't get worked up. I was only confirming the request." Ryssa swallowed back another gag as she knelt down next to the nearest casualty. He had been stabbed multiple times in the chest and each wound was melting into the next. When another excuse popped into her head, she was quick to take advantage of the opportunity to look away. She scooted around to face Sesshoumaru again instead. "One more question. Where are you going to store these livers once I hand them over?" 

"The air will become more unpleasant the longer you make excuses." Sesshoumaru's voice had taken on a gruff tone. 

Ryssa's mouth dropped open as she raised her eyebrows. "I take that to mean you didn't think about it."

Sesshoumaru lifted his hand to show off his pointed nails, much in the fashion of his brother. "Perhaps your own liver would be a better substitute for those of these humans."

Far from cringing from the threat, Ryssa returned his glare with competing force. "Go for it. If you have all you need to harvest these organs, what do you need to keep me around for? Don't deflect. You weren't prepared for this."

"A witch should be able to store her own ingredients!" Jaken said.

"Je te l'ai dit, I'm sure you remember," Ryssa said, glancing between the two of them with a smile contrasting her steely eyes, "I don't know what that means. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the uncanny laws of physics in this place, because you violated everything that I know in a matter of seconds. I'm certainly not aware of any innate 'witch' powers I may or may not have, nor do I have the knowledge or skills to use them if I do."

"You have skill enough for this, so be silent and obey." Sesshoumaru took a step toward her, claws still extended, but Ryssa rolled her eyes again.

"I don't want to carry around rotten human liver..."

Both Ryssa and Sesshoumaru turned their heads toward a shout echoing across the field. There were voices in the distance, getting nearer, carrying over the mist hovering over the bodies. Their bodies emerged on the edge of the field soon after; it was a group of some five men, carrying shovels and a hushed tones. Sesshoumaru glanced at Ryssa again, eyes still narrowed. "Complete your task. No more excuses."

A confrontation would inevitably draw out her task of robbing the dead, so Ryssa sighed as she turned back to the body. "Fine, but if I'm stuck with these, you're not going to hear the end of it." She pressed one of the blades into the bloated belly of the corpse in front of her, releasing a scent of decay even more noxious than the one hovering over the field. She took labored breaths. "Oh, how I've under-appreciated smelling salts..."

"Shall I take care of them, Sesshoumaru-sama?" Jaken asked, thrusting his two-headed staff in front of him.

"I have no patience for insects today. Ignore them unless they are foolish enough to challenge us."

One of the men stopped to point in their direction. After a brief conversation with muffled words, all of them turned to jog back the way they came. Ryssa saw them go out of the corner of her eye, but still made her work quick. She separated three livers from the dead in record time, in order to get out of the old battlefield as soon as possible. Jaken brought her a bag to put the organs in, and once they were secured there, she held it out to Sesshoumaru with a wrinkled nose. "There they are, three livers. Now I need to get to some water, fast." Ryssa held up one of her bloodied, sticky hands.

"There is water this way," Sesshoumaru said, swinging around to walk to the east, but not so much as looking at the bag full of livers. 

Ryssa narrowed her eyes and set her jaw. "These are yours. I got them for you."

"You may carry them for me as well," Sesshoumaru said without a single glance back at her.

She scoffed, hand holding the bag still stretched out to him. "Don't act like that would be some kind of honor! I'm not going to carry around these rotting stinking things!"

"If they're smelly to you, for Sesshoumaru-sama's sensitive nose they must be countless times worse, so don't you try to pawn them off on him!" Jaken whacked Ryssa in her calves with his staff, but instead of reducing her to quiet shame, she turned her verbal attack to him.

"I don't care how sensitive his nose is! If he commissioned the work, he gets to carry the product!" Ryssa leaned down to shove the bag back at him. "Or, maybe if you're so concerned about Sesshoumaru's nose, you can drag these along with you instead. I'll hold the stick." She snatched the staff out of his stunned hands before he had time to react.

"You give that back, wretch! Give it back!" Jaken wailed, but Ryssa held it out of reach. A glaze passed over her eyes and the weak punches and kicks she was receiving to her shins made no impact as she gazed at the staff. One of the wooden heads, the woman, blinked at her. Her fingers remained curled around the stick, stare locked on the tree rings curving over the contours of the woman's face. Entranced, it was as if she were waiting for a message to issue from the mouth of the carving, some sort of instruction.

Sesshoumaru's voice brought her out of her shallow meditation. "The humans return." Ryssa shook her head and turned to see the group that had left earlier marching toward them, this time with reinforcements. Others had joined their ranks, and those weren't shovels in their hands. They handled sharper implements now, like knives and sickles, and they were being led by someone in a priest's robes.

Ryssa smacked Jaken lightly over the head with the staff and dropped it next to him. Sesshoumaru ignored his servant's complaints while he stood watching the approaching humans for a moment. Then, having just found his legs again, he continued his walk toward the trees. Jaken stopped whining and scrambled after him, but Ryssa hung back a moment, looking down at her bloodied hands and blouse with a creased brow.

She picked up the bag with the stolen organs and began to trail after them just as the priest called, "Stop, demons! Stop where you are!"

"Hurry up, you worthless fool!" Jaken yelled at Ryssa.

"Perhaps I prefer the company that's smelly but silent!" Ryssa retorted, but she lengthened her strides. She could hear the priest and his band coming nearer, tools rattling with their pace. The smell of the livers she'd taken wafted past her nose again and she broke into a trot. Whatever consequences she would face for their theft, they were sure to be painful.

Their voices had gotten louder. She could hear the angry mumbles of the rest of the mob as well as the shouting of the priest. "You must stop!"

"Humans do not command this Sesshoumaru." Though he kept his slow pace, even after they had caught up and were surrounding their party. He only halted when the priest was standing in front of him with a glaring man on either side. "Out of my way."

The priest's eyes narrowed. "You have disturbed the brave and honored dead, and you ask what we want?"

"Actually, they weren't disturbed." Ryssa felt every glower turn upon her now. "They were quite peaceful."

"You need only see the violence they suffered by observing your clothes!" Ryssa avoided looking down but clasped her hands around the bag behind her back.

"It wasn't violent, I swear to you. I did it with the utmost precision and care!"

"Monster! You shall pay for bleeding the already fallen!" The priest twisted his hands and fingers into various positions lightning fast and suddenly Ryssa felt a burning sensation rise up in her stomach, through her chest and into her throat. It was the most agonizing heartburn she had ever experienced, and it was only getting worse. She collapsed to her knees and gasped for air, but even her lungs felt like they had fire in them. 

She squeezed her eyes shut reflexively, and when she opened them again she had fallen on her side. A man appeared over her with a sickle raised. Her blood was pounding in her ears, but Jaken's shrill voice still made its muffled way into her ears as he appeared in her peripheral vision with his staff aflame. The man above her caught fire, and dropped his sickle onto her head. 

Ryssa struggled to roll onto her stomach and push herself up, the pain still burning in her abdomen. When she did, it was just in time to see Sesshoumaru throwing the priest by his neck off to the side, and the old man skidded along the dirt until he lay motionless. It was instant relief, the pain melting away with the priest's unconsciousness. The rest of his mob, some sporting red burns on their hands, arms and faces, collected him and ran.

It was a few moments before Ryssa's breathing returned to normal. She coughed and spluttered. "What... What was that?!"

"You were almost purified, idiot!" Jaken said.

Ryssa's brows lowered as she glanced around. "Purified?"

"Killed!" Jaken responded. "By that human priest! If Sesshoumaru-sama had not acted when he did, you would have died for sure!"

All Ryssa could do was blink. "Alright." She began to stand but felt a trickle down her forehead and saw a drop of red fall onto her eyelashes. She lifted her hands to wipe it away and saw that they were already covered with someone else's blood. She lowered them slowly. "Where is that water, again? I need a wash, badly."

Sesshoumaru led them to a brook that seemed hours away. Ryssa stumbled along trying to stem the flow from her head by using a relatively clean part of her blouse, but she wouldn't let it touch the cut on her forehead directly. When they reached the edge of the stream, she paused to take off her shoes, then submerged herself in it. Ryssa crouched down facing against the current as long as possible, until she burst out of the surface with a long, satisfying gasp.

Her companions settled themselves on the side of the brook without comment about a waste of time, so she didn't hurry to leave the water . She scrubbed at her arms, her clothes, and rinsed the blood from her face for at least a half-hour before she finally felt clean enough to get out. Of course, she still couldn't be called clean. She sighed when she saw the outline of the brown stain of blood on the front of her blouse, and those on her trouser knees. "I've ruined these."

"Just be grateful you're not dead." Jaken eyed her forehead. "With a wound like that, you're lucky."

"Head wounds always look worse than they are. Are my brains showing?" Ryssa asked.

"No."

"Then I'll be fine."

"You must collect brains next," Sesshoumaru said, nodding at the bag with the livers.

Ryssa made a face. "Those are going to be even harder to store. And I'll need better tools." She pointed to her purse. "The knives in there are literally not going to cut it."

"What must you have?"

"A bone saw, for the skull. To remove the organ..." Ryssa glared at the ground a moment. "Do you know where I can get some volcanic glass? I'm not an expert flint-knapper, but I can make a knife that works. Sharper than steel."

The corner of Sesshoumaru’s mouth twitched.


	12. Tools

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshoumaru brings Ryssa to Toutousai for an upgrade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 7/31/16: I have two announcements. My next update on this story will be pushed from the 15th of August to the 30th. I'm undergoing a big move to the other end of the country, and I need the whole month to get settled and used to the new area. It'll be a little bit of a different culture, so I'm going to require some time. 
> 
> The second update that I have is the addition of a warning in the tags. When I started posting the story, I was near enough to the end of it that I was confident there wouldn't be any more surprises in the plot for me to warn for, but I was wrong. More than one major canon character dies, and I want to make sure that anyone who is not comfortable with this and is already reading the story has a chance to back out before those deaths occur. It's important to me that anyone reading is comfortable with the direction of the story, and is not upset, so if you are distressed by the nature of the content, I encourage you to discontinue reading. Do NOT keep following to spare my feelings. Do what you need to do to keep yourself happy. 
> 
> If you're capable of continuing on, Chapter 12 is below, and I'll see you in a month.

Ryssa had been growing used to how things just didn't work the way they were supposed to in this place, but when Sesshoumaru and the two-headed dragon she had been riding took to the sky, she was on the verge of tears again. She spent half the time waiting with bated breath for the ground to rush toward her, and the other half trying to figure out how it could be possible they were flying at all. The animal had no wings, there was no thrust, yet they managed to push forward through the air with just some clawing motions from its feet. Ryssa hyperventilated most of the flight, caught between her silent demands to herself to get a grip, and her compulsion to reconcile the reality she saw with one which made sense.

They landed on a smoking mountain, and Ryssa stumbled as she dismounted the dragon. Her legs turned to jelly where they hit the warm rocks beneath them. She listened for a taunt from Jaken, but his attention was on a great fossilized mouth of what might have been a giant Tiktaalik at some point. "Toutousai! We know you're still living here! No point in saying otherwise!"

A figure emerged from the mouth, hunched and shuffling out of the thin smoke issuing out of the cracks in the volcanic rock below. Toutousai appeared to be no more than an old man with a bent back and bulging eyes. The only thing unusual about him was his pointed ears, which also happened to be the only feature he had in common with the handsome Sesshoumaru. He was a sly-looking fellow, though, when his narrowed gaze traveled up and down her body. "Well, Sesshoumaru, you sure brought a weird material. What kind of weapon do you want me to make out of her?"

Ryssa, taken aback, gave Sesshoumaru a raised eyebrow. His glare was still fixed on Toutousai. "She requires a tool."

"A tool?" The old man scratched his exposed scalp, blinking hard a couple of times, until he shook his head. "I'm a sword smith. I don't make tools. I make companions in battle."

"Then make her a companion," Sesshoumaru said.

"You will need to see another smith for farming companions, I'm afraid." Toutousai began to turn around, and a sharp flash passed over Sesshoumaru's eyes, but Ryssa was the one to step forward.

"I need something that can cut through a skull, but not slice. It mustn't damage the tissue underneath." She held out a small square of paper she had found on the dragon the night before. "I've drawn what it should look like, if that helps."

Toutousai gave her another searching look as he shuffled forward and took the paper from her. After studying the drawing for a moment, he mumbled, "This is very specific..."

"Specificity is the nature of my job," Ryssa replied.

"And what job would that be, hm?" Toutousai asked.

Ryssa glanced at Sesshoumaru a moment before replying. "Headache relief, of course."

She saw Sesshoumaru raise an eyebrow as Toutousai began chuckling. "What a job that must be, with the company you have!" Sesshoumaru went right back to glaring when he heard that, but Toutousai dove into business, leaving no time for threats. "I'll need something of yours in order to craft the thing. A tooth is best."

"I'm... attached to my teeth," Ryssa said, gulping. "Anything else?"

"Well, witches always have strong nails." Toutousai took up her hand and examined the tips of her fingers. 

"If you say so. I always thought mine were fairly brittle."

Toutousai held onto her hand while he turned his head and whistled back at his house. Around the side of it ambled a bull, with a third eye in the middle of its forehead. Ryssa was so busy watching the eye blink with an open mouth and wide eyes, she didn't have time to react when Toutousai drew out a huge pair of shears from one of the bags on the animal. She croaked with a thrill of terror almost closing her throat, but Toutousai was so deft and agile with the clippers that the tip of her thumb nail was all he had in his palm at the end. Ryssa breathed a heavy sigh.

"This will do, I think." Toutousai turned around and shuffled back toward the mouth of his home. "Come back in three days."

"Three days? But..."

"I need time to craft what you want!" Toutousai called without turning around. "Three days!"

He disappeared back behind the fossil's teeth and didn't come out again. Ryssa bit her lip. "The livers won't last that long."

"We will find others," Sesshoumaru said.

"What makes you so patient all of a sudden?" Ryssa snapped. Sesshoumaru's eyebrows twitched downward again, but he said nothing. She scoffed and hung her head. "I'm going to find that glass, alright? It should only take a minute or two."

They made their camp down at the foot of the mountain, a nice spot to spend three days. There was a nearby pond with a short waterfall from a stream formed atop another, distant mountain. This fed some fragrant plants around the area, so the air was permeated with a pleasant scent every time the breeze passed. 

But by the time Ryssa had picked out her rocks and they descended to their place beneath a granite cliff, her huffs and sighs took up all of her attention and she noticed none of the scenery. She grabbed the glass and hammer stone she'd gathered and sat down to begin chipping away at one with the other. The two-headed dragon moved away from her to find a softer place to rest, because she was seated in a dusty patch of hard packed dirt. It didn't take long for her to start shifting and groaning.

After a sharp smart in her backside, she sighed and took a look around her for a better place to sit. Jaken's spot looked a tad too comfortable, seeing as how he had passed out and was snoring. Sesshoumaru had chosen a spot at the base of a tree, like always, and he was wide awake. And staring at her. She blinked, shifting her gaze back and forth, but every time she looked back at him, he had not looked away. Not wanting to draw any more attention to the fact that his stare caused her more discomfort than the uneven ground beneath her, she gestured to Jaken with her hammer stone. "He was more tired than he let on, huh?"

"He is old.”

Grinding the hammer stone along the edge of the obsidian, Ryssa hummed. “He doesn’t look much like your uncle or grandfather.”

Sesshoumaru’s gaze followed the hammer stone as it knocked another flake from glass. “I killed his former master. He became my retainer."

The question she had asked him when Jaken had been off fetching the dragon returned to her. "So that's why you wander together?"

"He is useful," Sesshoumaru answered again.

"Why did you kill his former master?" Ryssa asked.

"He was in my way," Sesshoumaru said.

Judging by how he had tossed aside the priest who came after them, the simple explanation wasn't a stretch. "So, either someone is useful to you, or they're in your way?"

"You ask a lot of questions." Sesshoumaru had narrowed his eyes again.

"When you're living in a state of confusion, I find that's the best time to ask questions. Especially about the people you're living with." They shared a long gaze, made all the longer by Ryssa looking for any of the kindness Rin had mentioned in his eyes. She didn't find it, but she didn't find cruelty either. He was a poor subject to test her ability to read expressions. "Speaking of usefulness, though, do you think we'll be able to use those livers in three days?"

"We will find more," Sesshoumaru repeated.

"And go through all that mess again?" 

"It was your delay with unnecessary questions that made it a mess." Sesshoumaru turned his head and scanned the trees rather than continue to look at her.

"Those questions were completely necessary in order to ensure I was giving you what was needed. Besides, if you knew there were people nearby who might interrupt, you should have just told me that to begin with." Sesshoumaru didn't reply, perhaps because he still had no answers for the questions she had asked. She continued without mentioning the possibility. "In any case, I'd like to know ahead of time what else I'm going to need to get for you, specifically, so that we can avoid the messy questions next time."

"The only human material are the liver and brain," Sesshoumaru said, still looking away.

"That's good news." Ryssa examined one of the edges of the glass in her lap, ready to finish the conversation. Why it had started in the first place came back to her when her backside gave another painful throb. "After we get the brain and possibly more livers, I can go back to the village to see if Kagome and Miroku have made any progress with our project."

Ryssa knocked another flake from the core before Sesshoumaru spoke again. "They won’t be forthcoming with a demon who has no fear or care for death."

Their gazes met for another long moment. Ryssa looked down again, fidgeting with a frayed hem of her slacks. "That is a distinct possibility, yes." Save for Rin, the attitudes of the villagers had not been the most accommodating, but she hadn't been around long enough to determine if it would get worse or better. However, now that she was working with Sesshoumaru, assumptions about her character were bound to worsen. True, no one hated Rin for her association with Sesshoumaru, but Rin wasn't a funny-looking stranger that examined corpses, like Ryssa was...

She pooled the core of glass and its flakes into the leather bag from the dragon's saddle she'd been using as a lap guard and stood. She walked over to Sesshoumaru, who followed her with his eyes until she lowered herself next to him. Her knee touched his and he drew it away as his glare at her intensified. "You are foolishly bold."

"You've been staring at me since I started this," Ryssa said, readjusting the core so she could examine its edges again. "I assumed you wanted a better view."

He remained stiff due to her proximity, leaning enough in the opposite direction to avoid touching her, but stayed put all the same. As she pointed out the places where she was hitting the glass and knocking off the flakes, he eventually tilted over for closer looks and relaxed enough for their knees to make contact again. He didn't flinch away this time.


	13. New Skins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While bathing, Ryssa sees the monster once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize to anyone who may have been waiting on the 30th for me to post as I promised. Unfortunately, I underestimated the amount of time it would take to get everything taken care of, and I'm still struggling to get all of my ducks in a row. I was able to take a small break, though, to edit this 13th chapter one final time before posting it. Even if it's a few days late, I hope you enjoy.

Sesshoumaru and Jaken had gone on some errand or other, saying nothing about the nature of it other than the fact that they would be back in the evening. Ryssa might have protested or at least offered to tag along, but their absence gave her the opportunity to strip and wade into the pool beneath the waterfall near their camp. It struck her as the worst decision she had ever made in retrospect. Standing beneath the waterfall was like taking a shower in needles, and it took all her willpower to keep from fleeing the cleansing her body had been so desperate for. 

Her hair had not only gotten oily, but sticky. She could feel a clumpy substance every time she passed her fingers through it. It was on the back of her head at first, and while she was muttering through her chattering teeth about how Jaken should have told her, she managed to work it down to the tips and take a look. Seeing it didn't help, because she couldn't recognize the substance, but she flung it on the rocks with a gag anyway. Jaken must not have noticed, given how it would have featured in his regular critiques of her appearance, as though someone as short and green as him had any room to talk. Her scowl deepened.

Ten minutes later she was still finding patches of oil and matted clumps, and her arms were starting to ache from the effort of picking them out. The water was a bit more tolerable the longer she fiddled, but her follicles were still standing on end. A small, childish part of her screamed that it was probably warm wherever Sesshoumaru and Jaken had gone. Warm and dry, without the futility of trying to become clean in the midst of a muddy bank and algae-covered rocks. 

She gave up, hands dropping to her side with a painful slap to her already stinging thighs. Her hair wasn't likely to feel any cleaner without a shampoo, and if she loitered in the pond any longer, hypothermia was a real threat. The full breeze hit her like a blizzard after the bombardment of the cool water for the last half-hour. She wouldn't have so much as blinked if the water dotting her skin had frozen solid at contact with it, or caught her blue-lipped reflection in a calmer corner of the pool. Stepping toward the shore was difficult, limbs shaking as her teeth chattered, but she wrapped her arms around herself and sloshed through the water.

Ryssa paused with the compulsion to lift her head and look back at the waterfall. At the top was a shock of purple hair, dead bulging eyes, and a gleaming grin. The grin seemed almost natural now; the skin wasn't stretched so taut against the bone that its lips were pulled back through force. There was room for the skin to move, and so there wasn't any split or void.

But this apparition sent a bigger chill through her than the one who drove her into the well. The body was small, lithe and the belly bulged. It was a child, a little girl by the look of the genitals, which were clearly visible from her lack of clothing and standing position at the top of the short cliff. Ryssa's shaking intensified, but she couldn't take her eyes off the figure on the rocky outcropping. The testimony of Isao echoed through her head, speaking of a daughter no one remembered had been eaten. Could this be that very girl?

"Ryssa."

She started, hypnosis broken when she snapped her gaze onto Sesshoumaru standing on the land. "You scared... Do you see...?" 

When Ryssa looked back around to where she lifted a trembling finger, the girl had vanished. "What did you see?" Sesshoumaru asked, peering at the rock through narrowed eyes.

"She's gone... It was a little girl, but it wasn't. It was just like that thing that Isao-san had described before he died. It was like it was using her skin..." Ryssa brought her shaking hand slowly down to her mouth, but her eyes were darting everywhere, searching for the figure in case it reappeared somewhere closer.

Sesshoumaru was holding his nose in the air; his nostrils flared, but the rest of his face remained impassive. Just as Jaken appeared to ask what was taking so long, Sesshoumaru jumped toward the small cliff to investigate. Ryssa let out a cry and held up a trembling hand, but he was already pacing the top of the rock, rotating his gaze along the grassy foliage there. "What's going on?" Jaken asked.

"I don't know..." It was useless to make any statements before she had any information on what it was or how it worked. Besides, Ryssa was still dedicating most of her attention to waiting for the creature to pop up again.

"Never mind, you stupid thing. If you don't stop standing there like that, you'll catch a cold and Sesshoumaru-sama will be very displeased!" Ryssa took another paranoid glance around her and then walked toward Jaken's impatient gestures. When she stepped back onto the shore, Sesshoumaru also touched back down beside her.

"There was nothing," he said.

"... Maybe I was mistaken." But when Ryssa looked back at Sesshoumaru, he was still scanning the cliff with intense, narrowed eyes. He didn't make another comment on it, though, and she was still shivering. "I'll put on my clothes and be back with you in a moment."

"Not those." She raised an eyebrow at Sesshoumaru, but froze in reaching for her ruined blouse.

"You're an embarrassment in those filthy rags." Jaken picked up a bundle from near his feet and held it up. "This is much more suitable for someone who is in Sesshoumaru-sama's presence."

It was midnight blue silk covered in stars, with the moon adorning the left side. It looked like Jupiter was there too, in correct relation to the moon. Ryssa found Venus right where it was supposed to be on the left-side hem as well. She was left speechless at the level of detail, like an accurate map. It took her a while to notice that the dark lavender obi had embroidered flower adornments, though they were in the same color thread. 

"This is... beautiful..." Ryssa brushed the soft fabric with the tips of her fingers.

"Well hurry up and put it on!" Jaken turned to stomp off.

"Uh... How?" Jaken froze and swung around, looking like his already bulging eyes were going to pop out of his skull. Sesshoumaru had also raised his eyebrows. Ryssa felt her cheeks burn, but was quick to explain herself. "I haven't ever worn anything like this before. I grew up with those kinds of clothes." She pointed at the blouse and slacks she'd left crumpled on the ground. "I don't doubt there are a lot of rules about how to wear this and I... don't really want to be laughed at."

"It's too late for that!" Jaken was rolling on the ground, holding his belly as he guffawed. 

"Jaken!" Sesshoumaru snapped. 

"But, Sesshoumaru-sama..." Jaken was having trouble keeping the giggle out of his voice as he stood again. "It's simply absurd..."

"That's enough." Sesshoumaru glanced back at Ryssa before pointing back toward camp, settling a heavy glare on Jaken. "Leave."

Jaken opened his mouth but shut it again without speaking for the time being. He sulked off between the trees and muttered something about starting a fire. When Ryssa couldn't hear his footsteps anymore, she sighed. "Thank you. I..."

"Turn around." Sesshoumaru lifted the bundle of fabric from her arms as she followed his instructions. He laid a solid undergarment across her shoulders with the collar dipping far below her neck. "Fold the front across your chest. Left over right." Ryssa pulled her damp hair to one side before she performed the next step, and she felt Sesshoumaru pause for a moment. It was brief, because the next moment he was putting his arms around her to loop the small matching belt around her waist. He took the opportunity to mutter in her ear, "A grown woman should dress herself."

"I'm taking mental notes." Sesshoumaru's tone wasn't deadpan as normal, but it was so slight that there was no identifying the emotion behind it. She gulped down the dry lump in her throat.

Everything proceeded without incident from then on, though. Once Sesshoumaru had shown her how to tie her obi, he took a quick step back to a respectable distance. "It is for you to do now." He grew a small smirk. "Even Rin knew how to put on her clothes when she came into my care."

Sesshoumaru was already disappearing into the trees next to camp, and showed no indication whether he had heard her scoff or not. All the same, she let the distance grow between them before she muttered to herself, "I'm sure Rin never had a grinning fiend following her around either."

And without detection by a super-powered protector, no less. The new skin of the monster could not have had a scent on it if Sesshoumaru was unable to trace it. Or had it been a different monster? Were there multiple creatures? The possibility of there being an entire species of those nightmares sent another shiver up her spine. She cast one more glance over the pond and surrounding land, and, seeing nothing, she sighed and headed back for camp.


	14. Pages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryssa has an illuminating vision.

Jaken wouldn’t hand over his two-headed staff, no matter how many times Ryssa's requests included “please” and other platitudes. He was eying her with a narrowed glare, holding it away from her as though she were making wild grabs for it instead of sitting still across the fire. She feigned patience with a blink. "Why would I hit you with it?"

"You tell me! You hit me earlier!"

Ryssa couldn’t keep up the facade; she rolled her eyes. "That little tap on the head? I'm sorry if I traumatized you."

"Everyone's always hitting me for something, aren't they!" While his beak drooped, his little knuckles tightened around the stick.

"Maybe you should pay closer attention to what you're saying and doing then," Ryssa suggested.

"What would you know about it, to give such advice?"

"I know that when something keeps happening to me, I take a look at my behavior to see if it's a possible cause." Jaken snorted, and Ryssa took it upon herself to bring their argument back to topic. "I just want to take a quick look. Is that a crime?"

"So take a look from where you're sitting. You can see it clearly enough. You don't need to hold it."

Ryssa sighed and sat back. She could have argued further, until he threw it at her just to get her to shut up. It seemed like an irony he would appreciate, with his fear of being hit. She couldn't bring herself to carry on her pestering, though. She didn't need to act so childish, after the ignorance she displayed back on the edge of the pond. Besides, she had no explanation for the itching in her fingers for the staff. It was more than a curiosity; it was as if it were drawing her to it, sending out some silent signal for her to touch it again, like when she had fallen into that meditation before their encounter with the priest...

"Jaken, give her the staff." Ryssa blinked at Sesshoumaru and shook her head. When Jaken started shrieking, as if the order had physically cut him, there was no mistaking that she had heard correctly.

"But Sesshoumaru-sama, surely you don't mean to give such a powerful thing to this girl! She would handle it with such disrespect and carelessness! She wouldn't even be able to..." Jaken trailed off into disbelieving croaks when he saw Sesshoumaru's eyes narrow. Ryssa raised an eyebrow at him, but he was focusing all his full glare on Jaken. 

It didn't take long for the servant’s resistance to wear down. Jaken sighed and walked over to Ryssa to thrust the staff at her. She leaned back to avoid a blow to her face, but grabbed the stick before Jaken could pull it back and claim she was too slow to want it so much. He stomped about halfway back to his seat on the other side of the fire and then grew a twisted frown, oscillating back and forth. Ryssa’s eyes followed his swaying. "What's wrong?"

"The problem is obvious, isn't it?" Jaken snapped. "You wouldn't have to move at all to shoot the Hell Fire at me, would you?"

Ryssa’s sigh turned into a groan halfway through. "Oh, Jaken, stop it! I'm not going to hurt you, alright?" Jaken settled a glower on her but kept his mouth shut. Whether he was afraid enough of her retaliation if he said something untoward or he just didn't have a snappy comeback yet was unclear.

Either way, his silence was a blessing as she concentrated on the staff. The expressions on both heads were bug-eyed and terrifying, but in different ways. The man's head seemed wild with rage, and the woman's looked like the repose of the dead. The wood they were carved from made the shadows on their faces somehow deeper, more realistic. It looked like they could move at any moment with the firelight flickering across them. The exposed tree-rings looked like veins.

And yet, despite the realistic nature of the carvings, nothing was happening, not even the meditative state that she had associated with it before. "What does it do?"

"What do you mean by that?" Jaken recoiled as if she were questioning his utility.

"You carry it around everywhere. It must do something for you. Do you just have a bad back, or...?"

"It shoots the Hell Fire, you fool, what did you think I was just talking about?"

"To be honest, I thought you were talking about another of those innate abilities I supposedly have but never used." 

Jaken sighed. "Surely you're not as dense as you're playing. You saw it during the fight with that useless priest!"

"You'll forgive me, I was a little out of sorts during that altercation. I had a nice little bump on my forehead to prove it, if you'll recall." Ryssa pointed to her temple, though the injury had healed. "Refresh me on what happened?"

Jaken took an impatient step toward her, but stopped and shifted his weight. He stepped back again and crossed his arms. "And I thought you were just ungrateful. That man who was going to cut you was burned because of the Hell Fire from the mouth of the old man there."

Ryssa turned the face in question to peer at it. She cast short glances at Jaken in between her examinations. "A wooden figure that shoots fire from its mouth?" The corners of Jaken's beak drew down further and Ryssa had to admit it was a useless question. "Of course I should be used to things here acting in a way that doesn't make sense..." Jaken held his expression, so Ryssa hastily added, "And thank you for saving my face back there, I really appreciate it."

"Somehow you don't sound very grateful at all," Jaken mumbled.

"So, then what does this other head do? I assume they both have functions?" Ryssa asked.

Jaken opened his mouth with a roll of his eyes, but it wasn't him that answered. "She is the judge that sees through lies," Sesshoumaru said. His eyes were gazing off into nowhere, but his words were pointed. "Together, the heads of the staff discover all truths."

Ryssa glanced down at the staff in her hands with knitted brows, then back up at Sesshoumaru. "This must be some special wood. Fire resistant and a lie-detector?"

"It revealed the location of the Tessaiga that had eluded this Sesshoumaru." He turned his head so that she could only see his sheet of silvery hair. "It chose not to disclose the futility of unearthing it, however."

Jaken began spitting out a tirade under a mystery context. "The fact that the disgusting half-breed was the recipient of such a fine weapon is so..."

"Silence, Jaken!" The servant squeaked out an apology at Sesshoumaru's prickly tone. It was the tone of someone who had just revealed an embarrassing scar, but resisted revealing details about how he got it. When Sesshoumaru held up a clawed hand to warn Jaken off even his sputtering, Ryssa made no attempt to put the conversation back into motion. She handed the staff back to a befuddled Jaken with a strained smile, then laid down to slip into an uneasy sleep.

A cold breeze penetrating the layers of her new kimono urged her awake some time later. Her eyes opened to search for a spot closer to what had to be just glowing embers in the fire pit now, and was met with a different sight. Not only was there no vestige of a fire or camp, but the clearing around her was unrecognizable. It was covered in a tall grass that grew up to her chin, with a line of trees growing on one side, and the moon shining a brilliant glow out of the clear sky overhead, no cliff face to be seen, and no companions either. She pushed herself to her feet and made a swift move toward the edge of the trees, peering between the branches in case they were just beyond. 

"Sesshoumaru? Jaken? Are you here?" Ryssa rotated on the spot, squinting at the darkness between the trees to catch a glimpse of her missing party. She didn't see them, but she heard a noise that resembled Jaken's scoff. It sounded far away, but she headed in the direction with a strong, confident step. She asked herself aloud why she wasn't afraid, when normally waking up in an unfamiliar area in complete isolation would strike her with terror, but her voice also had a distant, echoing quality to it. It was like her own voice was produced outside of her, somewhere in the expanse of trees she was navigating. She prodded at her neck with her fingers while her feet autonomously carried her further into the thick forest.

It was getting thicker too. The further she walked, the closer and more numerous the trunks, to the point where she had to squeeze between them. Her head swiveled left and right, spotting clearer paths in both directions, but her legs had a mind of their own. They just kept clambering over roots and carrying her through narrower gaps until they couldn't anymore. When it finally turned out that her body was not slender enough to move any further, and when her echoing external voice commented on how the moonlight was still bathing her despite the moon being blocked by the canopy, she stopped and turned around.

She was back in that unfamiliar grassy clearing, with one difference. The two-headed staff was standing on its own in the center, both heads too shadowed to see. She approached it with hesitant steps, leaning down and squinting to get a better look at their wooden faces. She wasn't an inch away when both their chins popped up, underlit with a strong blue glow.

Their mouths began opening and closing without any sound, but somehow, Ryssa was nodding at their silent instruction. She straightened and held out her arms, also mouthing words of which she had no conscious understanding. However, it was so natural to rise straight up out of the clearing and see the world and everything and how it all worked. The chant took her through mountains and rivers and oceans and the explanations of how all of them were connected, how to draw on all their vast strength and power. They were like pages in a book that flipped before her, pausing long enough for her to read specific passages. She could not connect these passages, but the whisper of the pages told her she would be needing them soon.

Amid the flipping paper, there was a dark spot. A tendril leaking out of the shadow between the pages. It looked like a part of the binding had come loose, but there was more to it than that. Much more that she couldn't see. Ryssa reached forward to pull at the string poking out, but she hesitated. Something was wrong. It felt like a trap, like there may be jaws with fangs waiting in the shadow there.

And then she opened her eyes. Sesshoumaru was kneeling beside her, his rapid blink and slight recoil not the only indication that her waking had been sudden. A sense of vertigo swept through her stomach and her fingers reached up to grab hold of his collar, the closest real thing she could grasp. "It… was it real?"

Sesshoumaru’s eyes widened. For a moment, his expression twitched like the reaction was caught between two extremes, but he settled on a frown. "Do not handle this Sesshoumaru thus," he said as he pulled her hand off his robe. His temper was mild, but his grip on her fingers was firm. "You were having a dream."

"But it felt like I was flying and the staff was speaking to me!" Ryssa squeezed his hand as the swooping in her belly subsided. "It was showing me the world and telling me about something…" She tossed her head and squeezed her lips shut to prevent a detailed description of her vision from spilling out. She couldn’t hold all of it in, though. "It told me the spell you’re trying to use is just the reverse on the spell to hide the scent, but unless you can get your thief to take it, it's not going to do much good. Suggested we scry for a lost item, and the instructions were so in depth…"

"Am I interrupting your embrace?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm afraid I'll have to leave the story on this cliffhanger for now. My beta reader seems to have disappeared, and she was responsible for this tale being as readable as it is. Now that she has gone, I'm looking for another with similar skills in order to clean and polish the writing, because a writer is prone to overlooking their own mistakes. If any reader knows of a beta that can help or is a beta, I would very much appreciate a recommendation. 
> 
> Until my return, farewell.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks goes to PangolinPirate and Suaru-chan over on Fanfiction.net for their help as betas.


End file.
